^v~ 


r>tt 


'%, 


PRINCETON,     N.    J. 


% 


Jf*/.  /3   / 


BT    15    .S64    1868 

Skinner,  Thomas  Harvey,  179: 

-1871. 
Discussions  in  theology 


7/' 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/discussionsintheOOskin 


DISCUSSIONS 


IN     THEOLOGY 


THOMAS   H.  SKINNER, 

PROFESSOR     IN     TIIE     UNION     THEOLOGICAL     SEMINARY. 


NEW    YORK: 

ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH, 

No.   770  BROADWAY. 

1868. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1868, 
By  ANSON  D.  F.  RANDOLPH, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


EDWARD    O.    JENKINS, 
PRINT  BR    AND    STEREOTYPER, 

50  Nonh  William  Street. 


PREFACE. 

This  volume  is  a  Second  Edition  of  the 
Miscellanies  it  contains.  They  have  been  col- 
lected out  of  Periodicals,  in  which  at  different 
times  they  were  printed.  They  have  been 
carefully  revised,  and  it  is  hoped,  now  appear 
in  a  better  than  their  original  form.  The 
subjects  of  them  are  important,  and  however 
imperfectly  treated  in  these  small  papers,  have 
not  been  discussed  without  a  deep  sense  of 
their  value.  The  author  has  been  induced 
to  prepare  the  little  book  which  embodies 
them,  by  a  desire  to  give  whatever  of  truth- 
fulness and  sound  teaching  may  be  found  in 
them,  more  emphasis  and  more  influence  than 
it  might  otherwise  have  had. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— MIRACLES   THE   PROOF   OF   CHRISTIANITY,   .  1 

II.— NATURE   OF  THE  ATONEMENT, 39 

III.— NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT— Continued,  .  57 

IV.— CHRIST   PRE-EXISTENT 73 

V.— CHRIST    PREACHING    TO     THE    SPIRITS     IN 

PRISON, 99 

VI.— IMPOTENCE   OF   WILL:    WILL-NOT    A    REAL 

CAN-NOT, 114 

VII.— THEORY  OF  PREPARATION  FOR  PREACHING,  131 

VIII.— DELIVERY  IN   PREACHING, 173 

IX.— FRAGMENTS   OF   THOUGHT, 206 

I. — OPTIMISM, 206 

II. — THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES, 211 

III. — MYSTERY, 218 

IV. — HAPPINESS, 222 

v. — sin,    .    4 226 

VI. — THE  REIGN  OP   SIN, 231 

VII. — MEKCY, 237 

Vni. — THE  REDEEMER, 244 

IX. — THE   WORK  OP   THE   SPIRIT, 251 

X. — MEDIATION, 258 

XI. — JUSTIFICATION  BY   GRACE, 262 

XII. — FAITH, 2G9 

XIII. — CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS, 275 

XIV. — TRUTH   THE   SAME  AND  ALWAYS   YOUNG  :     THE 

OLD  IN   THE  NEW, 283 


I. 

MIRACLES  THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

1.  Side  by  side  with  the  recent  naturalistic  ideas  of 
Christianity,  have  come,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
objections  to  miracles  as  proof  of  it.  There  is  a  rea- 
son why  the  objections  and  the  ideas  should  be  found 
together  :  the  natural  in  the  religion  can  have  no  need 
of,  or  affinity  with,  the  supernatural  or  miraculous  in  the 
evidence.  Hume  opposed  miracles  because  he  thought, 
that  admitting  them,  they  proved  Christianity  ;  our 
naturalists  oppose  them  because,  as  they  allege,  they 
are  unnecessary,  if  not  a  hindrance,  to  its  proof.  The 
difference  is  only  in  appearance  :  the  naturalists  agree 
with  Hume  in  opposing  miracles  ;  they  do  not  really 
disagree  with  him  as  to  the  bearing  of  miracles  on  the 
proof  of  Christianity.  What  the  naturalists  call  Chris- 
tianity did  not  in  Hume's  time  pass  under  that  name ; 
it  would  not,  in  itself,  have  been  unacceptable  to  him, 
only  he  would  have  thought  it  a  misnomer  to  call  it 
Christianity. 

2.  To  determine  whether  miracles  are  necessary  to 
the  proof  of  Christianity — our  present  undertaking — 


2  MTBACLES 

the  meaning  of  the  terms  must  be  fixed.  Understand- 
ing- by  Christianity,  a  revelation  distinctively  and  di- 
rectly from  God  ;  and  by  miracles,  direct  works  of  God, 
wrought  in  attestation  of  it,  our  inquiry  is  :  Are  the 
latter  the  proper  proof  of  the  former  ?  Or,  may  Chris- 
tianity be  adequately  proved  without  miracles?  A 
miracle,  according  to  its  etymology,  sometimes  signifies 
what  is  simply  wonderful  or  marvellous  ;  sometimes  it 
is  what  is  supposed  to  be  superhuman;  sometimes  it  is 
something  supernatural,  or  out  of  the  order,  if  not  an 
arrest  and  inversion  of  the  order  of  nature,  and  unex- 
plainable  by  any  law,  at  least  any  known  law  of  na- 
ture. In  our  use  of  the  word,  a  miracle  is  a  direct 
work  of  God,  performed  in  nature  and  under  the 
notice  of  the  senses,  but  of  divine,  in  contradistinction 
to  natural  or  finite  force.  God,  indeed,  is  in  a  true 
sense  the  force  of  nature's  forces  ;  still  there  are  works 
which  God  does  not,  and  works  which  he  does,  directly 
and  personally  perform  ;  and  miracles,  as  we  take  the 
term,  are  divine  works  of  the  latter  class.  "We  as- 
sume, as  out  of  question,  that  the  testimonial  miracles 
of  Christianity  are  direct  or  personal  works  of 
God. 

We  would  state  more  precisely  what  we  take  to  be 
the  true  idea  of  revelation  as  actualized  in  Christianity. 
According  to  Westcott*  the  objects  of  revelation  are 
"  things  essentially  existing  beneath  the  suffering,  sin, 
and  disorder,  which  are  spread  over  the  world  within 
us  and  without ;"  and  revelation  itself  is  "  the  re- 
moval of  the  dark  veil  from  the  face  of  these  things  f 
*  Introduction,  to  the  Study  of  the  Gospels,  p.  34. 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  3 

that  is  to  say,  if  we  understand  him,  revelation  ac- 
quaints us  with  nothing  extra-natural  or  out  of  the 
sphere  of  nature  ;  it  only  removes  a  veil  from  what 
exists  essentially  in  "man  and  nature"— the  world 
within  us  and  without.     We  do  not  accept  this  view 
of  the  objects,  or  the  office  of  revelation.     The  Scrip- 
ture revelation  does  more  than  remove  a  veil  from 
things  essentially  existing  in  the  world  ;  it  acquaints 
us,  by  direct  communication  from  God,  with  things 
not  existing  in  the  world  ;  even  the  deep,  the  infinite 
things  of  God,  of  which,  independently  of  this  revela- 
tion, no  one  would  have  had  an  idea,  though  all  the 
secrets  of  nature  had  been  disclosed  to  him.     There 
are  things,  indeed,  presupposed  and  embodied  in  those 
of  revelation,  doctrines  and  precepts  of  natural  reli- 
gion, facts  of  history,  which  are  not  peculiar  to  it ; 
these  things  do  not  individuate  the  revelation,  or  dis- 
tinguish it  as  such  ;  some  of  the  distinctive  things  are  : 
the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the  unity  Divine  Essence  ; 
the  Divine-human   character  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth; 
the  salvation  of  mankind  by  the  blood  and  intercession 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  ;  the  resurrection  of  the  same  body; 
these  are  peculiarities  of  revealed  religion  ;  they  are 
not  things  lying  under  a  dark  veil  spread  over  the 
face  of  the  world,  but  things  altogether  extra-mundane, 
having  no  place  in  man  or  nature,  the  world  within 
us  or  without.     The  idea  of  revelation,  according  to 
which  nothing  is  revealed  except  what  previously  ex- 
isted in  the  world  under  a  veil,  seems  to  Westcott  "  to 
be  peculiarly  Christian  ;"  we  reject  it,  as  identifying 
substantive  Christianity  with  natural  religion. 


4  MIRACLES 

3.  Our  limits  allow  us  but  a  word  on  the  arguments 
against  miracles.  Hume  contented  himself  with  as- 
sailing their  reality,  or  trying  to  make  out  the  impossi- 
bility of  proving  them.  Miracles,  he  insisted,  are 
contrary  "  to  firm  and  unalterable  experience  ;"  which, 
surely,  he  was  safe  enough  in  saying  no  testimony  can 
countervail.*  But  how  did  he  know  what  he  asserts 
as  a  fact  ?  Whether  miracles  are  against  all  experi- 
ence, is  the  point  in  question.  His  task  was  not  to 
assert,  but  to  prove  the  affirmative  ;  a  task  he  has 
evaded.  A  host  of  unimpeachable  witnesses  has 
affirmed  the  occurrence  of  miracles  as  a  matter  of  their 
own  experience.  Hume  has  not  discredited  their 
testimony,t  which,  if  it  cannot  be  discredited,  dis- 
proves his  assumption  ;  he  is  mistaken  as  to  the  re- 
ality of  the  ground  of  his  argument. — Recently  it  has 
been  alleged  in  the  interest  of  Hume's  attempt,  that 
the  testimony  for  miracles  can  be  no  other  than  testi- 
mony to  sensible  events  seemingly  miraculous  ;  that 
they  were  really  miracles,  could  have  been  to  the  spec- 
tators only  a  matter  of  belief,  not  of  experience.  But 
the  witnesses  of  miracles  were  not  the  spectators  of 
them  only  :  the  prime  witnesses  were  the  performers 
of  them,  who  wrought  them,  as  they  declared,  in  the 

*  "  A  miracle  is  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  ;  and  as  a  firm 
and  unalterable  experience  has  established  these  laws,  the  proof 
against  a  miracle,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  fact,  is  as  entire 
as  any  argument  from  experience  can  possibly  be  imagined." — 
Essay  on  Miracles,  p.  160. 

f  He  has  said,  indeed,  that  there  is  not  to  be  found  in  all  his- 
tory any  trustworthy  testimony  to  miracles,  but  he  has  said  it 
merely.    (See  Essay  on  Miracles,  p.  163.) 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  5 

name,  arid  simply  as  instruments  in  the  hand  of  God. 
Theirs,  chiefly,  is  the  testimony  to  be  discredited. 
"If  St.  Paul  did  not  work  actual,  sensible,  public 
miracles,  he  has  knowingly  in  these  letters,"  says 
Paley,  "  borne  his  testimony  to  a  falsehood."  Did  St. 
Paul,  with  his  fellow-apostles  and  others,  bear  such 
testimony  in  fact  ? 

Modern  naturalists,  going  further  than  Hume,  deny 
not  the  reality  or  demonstrableness  only,  but  the 
possibility  of  miracles.  Science,  they  say,  has  dis- 
covered that  order  in  the  world  is  a  pure  necessity, 
and  absolutely  inviolable  ;  but  science  can  have  made 
no  such  discovery  as  this,  uuless  it  has  further  dis- 
covered that  the  world  is  not  the  creature  of  God,  or 
is  independent  of  him  ;  or,  in  a  word,  that  there  is  no 
God  distinct  from  the  world.  If  the  world  with  its 
order  be  the  creature  of  God,  the  order  in  it  may  be 
necessary  and  inviolable  in  respect  of  creatures,  but 
surely  not  in  respect  of  God  himself,  who  is  no  longer 
God  if  he  cannot  destroy  or  change  as  well  as  estab- 
lish a  certain  order.  If  it  be  said  that  he  is,  by 
nature,  the  God  of  order,  this,  though  doubtless  true 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term  order,  does  not  imply 
that  miracles  arc  against  order  in  that  sense.  For 
aught  we  know  they  may  not  be,  and  the  assertion 
that  they  are,  is  an  assertion  merely.  "  Once  believe 
that  there  is  a  God,"  says  Paley,  "  and  miracles  are 
not  incredible." 

4.  But  now  to  our  question.  Assuming  that  mira- 
cles are  both  possible  and  real,  may  Christianity  be 
adequately  proved  without  them  ?     We  take  Christi- 


6  MIRACLES 

anity  as  a  revelation  in  the  sense  already  expressed. 
In  any  other  view  of  it,  miracles,  among  proofs  of 
Christianity,  would,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  be 
superfluous  if  not  obtrusive.  "  Those,"  says  Mansell, 
"  who  deny  the  existence  of  any  special  revelation  of 
religious  truths  distinct  from  that  general  sense  in 
which  mere  reason  itself,  and  all  that  it  can  discover, 
ar^'the^  gifts  of  Him  from  whom  every  good  thing 
coSnes»are  only  consistent  when  they  deny  that  mira- 
cles, -J&rve  any  value  as  evidences  of  religious  truth  ; 
and  are  still  more  consistent  when  they  deny  that  such 
works  have  been  wrought."  How  gratuitous,  and 
therefore  how  improper  to  work  miracles  in  attesta- 
tion of  things  essentially  existing  in  the  world!  To 
remove  the  veil,  to  show  the  things,  would  be  to  prove 
them  :  if  they  and  Christianity  were  identical,  the 
latter  would  doubtless  be  self-demonstrative  apart 
from  all  external  evidence.  The  truth,  revealed 
through  Christ,  would  have,  as  Coleridge  affirms  it 
has,  its  evidence  in  itself.  Infinitely  different  is 
Christianity,  according  to  the  meaning  in  which  our 
question  takes  the  term.  It  uses  the  term  in  its  own 
signification  when  it  asks  whether  Christianity  can  be 
adequately  attested  without  miracles. 

5.  And  now,  first  of  all,  let  us  understand  what  is 
an  adequate  attestation,  a  sufficient  proof  of  Christi- 
anity? This,  if  we  mistake  not,  is  determinative  of 
the  main  question.  Whatever  the  requisite  proof 
may  be,  one  thing  is  certain,  that  Christianity  is  not 
sufficiently  attested  if  its  evidence  does  not  justify  and 
demand,  not  a  persuasion  of  the  possibility  or  proba- 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  V 

bility,  but  a  full  undoubting  assurance  of  the  absolute 
verity  of  its  averments  :  not  that  this  assurance  must 
or  always  does  attend  the  evidence,  which,  through 
preoccupation  may  be  neglected,  or  through  prejudice, 
misjudged  ;  but  that  it  is  demanded  by  the  nature  of 
the  evidence.  Christianity  itself  makes  this  demand 
of  mankind :  Wherever  it  comes  it  holds  itself  en- 
titled to  immediate  acceptance  as  true  and  as  divine  ; 
proclaims  a  fearful  menace  to  unbelief,  the  menace  of 
eternal  death  ;  it  imputes  to  unbelief  the  highest 
criminality,  even  that  of  making  God  himself  a  false 
witness ;  it  connects  this  infinite  guilt  with  every 
degree  of  unbelief,  so  that  he  who  believes  with  an 
incomplete  faith  is  ready,  with  a  penitence  propor- 
tional to  his  shortcoming  in  faith,  to  cry  out,  with  the 
father  of  the  lunatic  child  :  "  Lord,  I  believe,  help 
thou  my  unbelief."  It  has  been  said*  that  the  assent 
to  which  Christianity  is  entitled  is  not  equal  to  that 
which  we  owe  to  the  discoveries  of  science  ;  that  a 
sense  of  probability  is  the  utmost  the  former  can  le- 
gitimately include,  while  the  latter  must  extend  to  a 
sense  of  certainty.  But  how  inadvertent  or  disloyal 
to  the  interests  of  Christianity  is  this  remark  !  Well 
has  Stillingfleet  said,  that  "  an  assent  no  stronger  than 
to  a  thing  merely  probable,  which  is  that  it  may  or 
may  not  be  true,  is  not  properly  assent  at  all,  but  a 
suspension  of  our  judgment  till  some  convincing  argu- 
ment be  produced  on  either  side."f  But  confront  this 
remark  with  the  peremptory  claim  of  Christianity  to 

*  In  Aids  to  Faith,  Essay  II.  f  Origines  Sacrce,  vol.  i.,  p.  222- 


8  MIRACLES 

our  absolute  assent.  According  to  this  claim,  what 
is  there  that  ought  to  be  more  certain  to  me  than  the 
truth  of  Christianity?  Not  the  existence  of  God,  or 
the  existence  of  the  world,  or  my  own  existence. 
"  He  who  believeth  not  is  condemned  already,  because 
he  hath  not  believed;"  "he  hath  made  God  a  liar." 
This  fact  it  is  that  gives  the  answer  to  the  question, 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  proof,  that  adequately  authen- 
ticates Christianity.  The  assent  required  is  surely 
not  out  of  proportion  to  the  proof.  The  measure  of 
the  first  is  not  greater  than  the  measure  of  the  second. 
The  contrary  supposition  charges  the  highest  injustice 
on  him  who  only  is  just  and  good.  "  If  there  be  no  evi- 
dence given  sufficient  to  carry  the  minds  of  men  beyond 
mere  probability,  what  sin  can  it  be  in  those  who  can- 
not be  obliged  to  believe  as  true  what  is  only  dis- 
covered as  probable  ?"*  On  the  ground  of  this  postu- 
late, then,  let  our  inquiry  proceed.  Abstract  the 
miracles,  and  will  there  be  adequate  proof  of  Christi- 
anity ? 

6.  But  before  advancing  let  us  name  one  preliminary 
more,  and  one  bearing  with  decisive  force  on  the 
decision  of  our  question.  The  miracles  are  in  fact 
innumerable,  and  they  have  never  been  separated  from 
Christianity.  Whether  the  proof  of  our  religion  re- 
quired miracles  or  not  there  has  been  no  experiment 
to  determine.  Christianity  has  never  existed  except, 
as  we  may  say  with  emphasis,  in  the  blaze  of  miracles. 
Revealed  religion,  itself  a  miracle,  was  accompanied 
at  its  beginning  with  testimonial  miracles,  to  which 
*  Stilling  fleet,  vol  ii.,  p.  222. 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  9 

others  were  added,  from  time  to  time  throughout  the 
whole  history  of  its  progress.  What  a  brilliant  gal- 
axy of  miracles  in  days  of  old  before  the  advent  of 
Christ !  How  full  of  splendid  miracles  the  life-history 
of  our  Lord  !  How  is  the  record  of  the  beginning  and 
planting  of  Christianity  studded  witli  miracles  as  the 
firmament  with  stars !  But  more,  much  more  than 
this  :  miracles  are  not  only  accompaniments  of  Chris- 
tianity, they  are  inwrought  and  consubstantial  with  it. 
"  Miracles  and  prophecy,"  says  Rothe,  "  are  not  ad- 
juncts appended  from  without  to  a  revelation  inde- 
pendent of  them,  but  arc  constitutive  elements  of  the 
revelation  itself."  "The  miracles  in  the  Bible,"  Bol- 
ingbroke  has  said,  "  are  not  like  those  in  Livy,  de- 
tached pieces  that  do  not  disturb  the  civil  history, 
which  goes  on  very  well  without  them.  But  the 
whole  history  is  founded  on  them ;  it  consists  of 
little  else,  and  if  it  were  not  a  history  of  them  it 
would  be  a  history  of  nothing."  "Miracles,"  says 
Mansell,  "  are  part  of  the  moral  as  well  as  sensible 
evidences,  and  cannot  be  denied  without  destroying 
both  kinds  of  evidence  alike.  '  That  ye  may  know 
that  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive 
sins,  I  say  unto  thee  arise  and  take  up  thy  couch  and 
go  into  thine  house.'  '  If  I  with  the  finger  of  God 
cast  out  devils,  no  doubt  the  kingdom  of  God  is  come 
among  you.'  '  By  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazar- 
eth, even  by  him,  doth  this  man  stand  before  you 
whole  :'  Let  us  imagine,  for  an  instant,  such  words  as 
these  to  have  been  uttered  by  one  who  was  merely 
employing  a  superior  knowledge  of  natural  laws  to 


10  MIRACLES 

produce  a  false  appearance  of  supernatural  power; 
by  an  astronomer,  for  instance,  who  had  predicted  an 
eclipse  to  a  crowd  of  savages  ;  or  by  a  chemist  avail- 
ing himself  of  his  science  to  exhibit  relative  miracles 
to  an  ignorant  people,  and  we  shall  feel  at  once  how 
even  the  most  natural  explanation  of  miraculous  phe- 
nomena deals  the  death-blow  to  the  moral  character 
of  the  teacher  no  less  than  to  the  sensible  evidence  of 
his  mission."  We  see  then  how  the  miraculous  enters 
essentially  into  the  very  constitution  and  structure  of 
Christianity.  In  fact,  it  can  no  more  be  separated 
from  either  the  intrinsic  or  the  testimonial,  the  moral 
or  sensible  evidence  of  Christianity,  than  color  from 
the  rainbow,  or  light  from  the  rays  of  the  sun. 
Whether,  then,  miracles  were  or  were  not  necessary, 
they  have  never  been  wanting.  In  number,  almost 
without  number,  they  do,  in  fact,  attest  Christianity. 
And  this  decides  one  thing,  and  it  is  the  only  thing 
needed  to  justify  the  high  claim  of  our  religion,  this, 
namely,  that,  taking  the  evidence  of  Christianity  as  it 
in  reality  is,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  its  suffi- 
ciency ;  with  its  miracles  it  is  sufficient,  whether  it 
would  or  would  not  be  without  them.  There  is  no 
ground  of  certainty  if  there  be  none  in  this  evidence  : 
it  is  no  less  infallible  than  the  character  of  God. 
The  presence  of  miracles  is  the  presence  of  God  him- 
self as  a  Deponent.  Unbelief  in  Christianity  does, 
indeed,  make  God  a  false  witness:  there  is  no  deeper 
criminality.  "  When  He  is  come,  He  will  reprove  the 
world  of  sin,  because  they  believe  not  on  me." 

7.   But   though   mir'acles   arc   in   fact  inseparable 


TEE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  \\ 

from  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  their  absence  may 
be  imagined ;  and  there  are  those  who,  as  apologists 
for  Christianity,  say  they  would  prefer  their  absence, 
and  would  fain  eliminate  them,  if  they  could  ;  and 
groundless  and  purposeless  as  our  question  may  now 
seem,  the  cause  of  Christianity,  as  claiming  to  be  a 
revelation  directly  from  God,  is  staked  on  the  decision 
of  it.  The  answer  to  this  question  tests  the  natural- 
istic view  of  revealed  religion.  If  there  is  no  necessity 
for  the  miraculous  in  the  evidence,  it  is  because  there 
is  nothing  miraculous  in  the  religion  :  in  our  sense  of 
the  term  it  is  not  a  revelation.  Away  with  miracles, 
means,  away  with  a  so-called  miraculous  revelation. 
The  inquiry  whether  Christianity  may  not  be  proved 
without  miracles,  is  virtually  the  inquiry  whether 
essential  Christianity  may  not  be  resolved  into  na- 
turalism.    Let  us  then  proceed. 

8.  If  Christianity  can  be  proved  apart  from  testi- 
monial miracles,  it  must  be  either  by  the  self-evident 
truthfulness  of  its  substantive  or  constitutive  elements  ; 
or  by  its  moral  evidence  ;  or  by  its  proper  effects ; 
or  lastly,  its  collateral  evidences,  so-called,  in  counter- 
distinction  to  miracles,  will  suffice  to  prove  it.  We 
are  to  inquire  whether,  without  any  presupposition  or 
aid  of  the  miraculous,  sufficient  evidence  may  be  de- 
rived from  these  sources. 

Is  Christianity  its  own  witness  through  its  indi- 
viduality as  a  revelation,  or  its  constitutive  elements  ? 
"  Evidences  of  Christianity  !"  says  Coleridge,  "  I  am 
weary  of  the  word."  "  The  truth  revealed  through 
Christ  has  its  evidence  in  itself.'7     Let  us  patiently 


12  MIRACLES 

inquire  as  to  the  fact  concerning  this  :  Has  Christi- 
anity its  evidence  in  itself?  We  have  distinguished, 
in  Christianity,  between  what  it  has  in  common  with 
natural  religion,  and  what  is  distinctively  its  own. 
The  present  question  has  no  reference  to  the  former ; 
so  far  as  that  is  concerned,  the  evidence  is  in  itself ; 
but  it  is  no  part  of  the  evidence  of  Christianity,  as 
such,  being  no  part,  distinctively,  of  Christianity  it- 
self. It  is  in  respect  to  the  latter  that  we  ask,  does 
it,  apart  from  miracles,  or  by  mere  self-evidence,  assert 
its  own  truth  ?  The  things  concerning  which  we  in- 
quire, whether  they  are  self-evident  or  not,  are  of  the 
class  including  the  following  :  That  the  Eternal  Word 
was  made  flesh  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  ;  that  the  death 
of  Jesus  was  the  redemption  of  the  world  ;  that  Jesus 
is  the  Almighty  Ruler  and  Judge  of  the  world  ;  that 
the  dead  will  be  raised  by  him  at  the  last  day  :  are 
these  things,  independently  of  testimony,  true  to  the 
reason  of  mankind  ?  The  question  gives  its  own  an- 
swer. "  Nothing,"  says  Dr.  Hodge,  "  in  the  appre- 
hension of  rationalists,  can  be  more  absurd  than  that 
the  blood  of  the  cross  can  remove  sin."  "  We  preach 
Christ  crucified,"  said  Paul, "  to  the  Jews  a  stumbling- 
block,  and  to  the  Greeks  foolishness."  The  Gospel 
certainly  never  made  its  way  by  recommending  itself 
to  the  intuitive  consciousness,  or  the  natural  reason, 
of  man,  apart  from  external  evidences  of  its  truth.  No 
more  palpably  untrue  assertion  could  be  made  than  that 
Christianity,  in  its  supernatural  peculiarities,  has  its 
evidence  in  itself,  meaning  thereby  that  it  has  no  need 
of  external  proof.     "  There  is  nothing."  says  Calvin, 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRIS1IANITY.  13 

•'  that  is  more  at  variance  with  human  reason  than 
this  article  of  our  faith  (the  resurrection  of  the  body). 
For  who  but  God  alone  could  pursuade  us  that  bodies 
which  are  now  liable  to  corruption,  will,  after  having 
rotted  away,  or  after  they  have  been  consumed  by 
fire,  or  torn  in  pieces  by  wild  beasts,  not  only  be  re- 
stored entire,  but  in  a  greatly  better  condition  ?  Do 
not  all  our  apprehensions  of  things  reject  this  as  a 
thing  fabulous,  nay,  the  greatest  absurdity  in  the 
world?"  Truly,  only  God  himself,  bearing  witness 
directly  to  the  truth  of  Christianity,  could  justify  or 
warrant  belief  in  it.  Reason,  nature  itself,  demands 
that  God  himself,  by  supernatural  works,  or  some 
equivalent  means,  attest  a  supernatural  revelation, 
such  as  Christianity  claims  to  be.  They  are  its 
natural  and  proper  proofs .  "  I  should  not  be  a 
Christian,"  said  St.  Augustine,  "but  for  miracles." 
Except  for  miracles,  there  would  not  have  been  sin 
in  not  believing  on  Jesus  Christ.  "  If  I  had  not  done 
among  them  the  works  which  none  other  man  did, 
they  had  not  had  sin."  Claiming  to  be  the  Messiah, 
it  behooved  our  Lord  to  authenticate  His  claim  by 
miracles — preannounced  notes  of  Messiahship — which, 
if  He  had  not  wrought,  the  Jews,  in  reverence  of  the 
prophetic  Scriptures,  ought  to  have  rejected  Him. 
Let  us  inquire,  then,  of  those  who  say  that  Christi- 
anity has  its  evidence  in  itself,  what  they  mean  by  this 
language.  Taking  Christianity,  with  its  concreted 
testimonial  miracles,  it  has  its  evidence  in  itself,  and 
witnesses  in  its  own  behalf,  as  the  sun  does  for  himself, 
by  the  light  and  heat  which  he  sheds  through  the 


14  MIRACLES 

world  ';  but  apart  from  the  evidence  of  miracles,  ought 
it  not  to  be  discredited  ? 

9.  It  is  demonstrated,  it  has  been  said,  by  its  moral 
evidence,  or  ethical  excellency.  Is  this  so  ?  We 
have  seen  that  the  moral  in  the  evidence  is,  in  fact, 
interblended  and  consubstantiated  with  the  miracu- 
lous ;  but  still  it  is  urged  that  the  moral,  of  itself,  and 
without  need  of  the  miraculous,  demonstrates  the  truth 
of  Christianity.  The  ethics  of  Christianity  stamp  it, 
beyond  all  question,  as  Divine.  And  as  a  general 
fact,  is  it  not  the  ethical  influence,  or  the  moral  evi- 
dence of  Christianity,  that,  as  the  objective  cause, 
actually  produce  faith  in  men  ? — Be  it  so — we  assent 
not  only,  but  affirm  and  insist.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  Christianity,  to  one  susceptible  of  the  specific 
impressions  from  it,  does  witness  for  itself,  does  de- 
monstratively assert  its  divinity,  by  its  ethical  peculi- 
arity. In  such  a  type,  and  with  such  resplendence, 
has  the  ethical  element  been  developed  in  Christianity, 
as  to  make  it  an  absolute  Unique  in  the  earth  ;  and 
challenge  for  it,  wherever  it  is  known,  the  assent  of 
the  world,  as  a  miraculous  revelation.  And  this  evi- 
dence it  truly  is,  that  in  every  case  prevails,  in  actually 
gaining  men's  assent  to  Christianity,  so  far  as  it  is 
gained  in  truth.  None,  at  least,  become  true  believers 
while  they  are  insensible  to  the  moral  evidence,  the 
ethical  or  spiritual  excellency  of  the  Gospel.  All  the 
evidences  pour  their  force  into  the  moral,  or  become 
moralized,  so  to  speak,  when  that  impress  is  given  to 
the  susceptible  heart,  which  is  the  just  counterpart,  in 
man,  of  objective  Christianity.     To  that  spiritual  dis- 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  15 

cernment,  in  which  faith  has  its  upspring  and  being, 
all  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God  are,  preeminently) 
ethical  things ; — permeated  and  filled  with  the  ful- 
ness of  ethical  power  and  excellency.  Well  does 
Edwards  resolve  "  a  spiritual  and  saving  conviction 
of  the  truth  and  reality  of  the  things  revealed  in  the 
word  of  God  "  into  "  a  sense  of  the  divine  excellency 
(the  moral  glory)  of  these  things."  Nevertheless  the 
evangelical  morality,  that  form  of  morality  which 
constitutes  the  moral  evidence  and  asserts  the  truth 
of  Christianity,  so  far  from  being  without  the  miracu- 
lous, has  the  miraculous  in  fact,  as  its  suppositum  and 
ground.  It  is  a  form  or  type  of  morality,  taken  al- 
together from  the  contact  and  intercourse  of  the 
principle  of  morality  with  the  miraculously  attested 
wonders  of  redemption.  The  moral  evidence  of  Chris- 
tianity, distinctively,  is  not  its  embodiment  of  morality 
in  the  abstract,  or  of  morality  in  so  far  as  it  is  com- 
mon between  Christianity  and  natural  religion,  but 
that  peculiar  and  ineffably  glorious  type  of  morality, 
which  consists  in  the  concretion  of  the  ethical  element 
in  the  miraculous  facts  of  the  great  mystery  of  Godli- 
ness :  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the  spirit, 
seen  of  angels,  preached  unto  the  nations,  believed  on 
in  the  world,  received  up  into  glory.  It  could  not  be 
known  that  Christianity  is  Divine  or  truthful  in  its 
claims  to  divinity  from  morality  unmodified  by  influ- 
ences from  its  own  facts  and  doctrines :  no  such  exhi- 
bition or  enforcement  of  morality  could  avail,  in  any 
degree,  to  prove  the  Trinity  in  God,  or  the  incarnation 
of  the  Word,  or  the  atonement,  or  the  resurrection. 


16  MIRACLES 

In  order  to  be  demonstrative  by  its  moral  evidence, 
Christianity  with  its  supernatural  wonders,  must  come 
itself  into  the  sphere  of  morality,  and  take  a  form  of 
morality  from  itself,  and  express  itself  in  that  form  ; 
that  is  to  say,  produce  a  morality  distinctively  Chris- 
tian; or  such  as  has  Christianity,  with  its  miracles,  for 
its  origin  and  base.  It  is  divinely  revealed  and  at- 
tested Christian  truth,  that  entering  into  the  ethical 
sphere,  makes  all  things  there  new,  giving  every  prin- 
ciple a  new  illustration,  and  every  precept  a  new 
exposition  and  a  new  motive,  and  making  every  man 
who  becomes  an  example  of  it,  a  new  creature — this 
is  the  moral  evidence  which  demonstrates  Christianity. 
It  has  its  breath  and  being  in  the  miracles  ;  take 
them  away,  and  the  evidence  goes  with  them.  Apart 
from  these,  the  ethical  superiority  of  Christianity  is, 
so  far,  to  its  praise,  but  does  not  demonstrate  its  claims 
to  a  divine  origin. 

10.  Next,  is  there  proof  of  Christianity  from  its 
effects,  or  actual  efficiency  on  mankind,  apart  from 
miracles  ?  We  do  not  ask  whether  this  evidence  is 
demonstrative,  but  whether  the  influence  of  miracles 
is  to  be  excluded  from  it.  The  evidence  is  demonstra- 
tive: the  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits — Christianity 
meets  the  infinite  wants  of  man ;  it  recovers  him  from 
the  dominion  of  sin ;  it  creates  him  anew  in  the  image 
of  God ;  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every 
one  who  believes  in  it.  Here  truly  is  the  crowning 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and  it  is  evidence 
which  Christianity  will  always  be  multiplying  to 
itself.     But  the  present  question  is,  Does  this  evidence 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  i? 

imply  that  miracles  may  be  dispensed  with  ?  And  the 
answer  to  it  is,  that  the  evidence  is  the  very  fruitage  of 
miracles.  Whence  that  efficacy  of  Christianity  which 
supplies  this  evidence  ?  What  is  this  efficacy  but 
that  of  a  wondrous  miracle,  or  collection  of  miracles, 
enshrined  in  countless  witnessing  miracles  ?  Would  a 
Christianity,  so  called,  denuded  of  the  miraculous, 
have  had  the  same  efficacy?  Take  away  this  element 
from  the  Gospel,  and  would  it  still  be  the  perfect 
satisfaction  of  human  need,  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  ? 

11.  As  yet,  then,  we  have  no  proof  of  Christianity, 
apart  from  miracles.  May  it  not,  nevertheless,  be 
sufficiently  proved  without  them,  by  its  collateral  evi- 
dence? We  have  already  answered  this  question. 
Christianity  has  evidence  of  this  kind  of  an  immense 
amount,  in  which  apparently  or  distinctively,  there  is 
nothing  of  the  miraculous.  "  It  has  pleased  the  Di- 
vine Author  of  our  religion,"  says  Mansell,  "  to  fortify 
his  revelation  with  evidence  of  various  kinds,  appeal- 
ing with  different  degrees  of  force  to  various  minds, 
and  to  the  same  mind  at  different  times."  In  the 
words  of  Butler,  "the  evidence  of  Christianity 
is  a  long  series  of  things  reaching  as  it  seems 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  present 
time,  of  great  variety  and  compass."  Is  there  not 
in  this  series  of  things  evidence  enough  to  prove 
Christianity  independently  of  the  miraculous  portion 
of  it  ?  Butler,  who  ascribes  great  weight  to  this  evi- 
dence, "  consisting  of  things  not  reducible  to  the  heads, 
either  of  miracles  or  the  completion  of   prophecy," 


18  MIRACLES 

still,  while  making  these  two  the  direct  and  funda- 
mental proofs,  adds  that  those  others  (the  collateral 
proofs),  however  considerable  they  are,  ought  never  to 
be  urged  apart  from  the  direct  proofs,  but  to  be  always 
joined  with  them."  Why  should  the  collateral  proofs 
never  be  urged  apart  from  the  direct  ones,  but  always 
be  joined  with  them  ?  For  two  palpable  reasons  : 
first,  because,  if  the  collateral  proofs  could  exist, 
apart  from  the  direct,  they  would  not  be  in  themselves 
or  in  their  influence,  equivalent  to  the  direct.  They 
would  not  be,  as  God  himself  directly  deposing  to  the' 
truth  of  Christianity,  so  as  to  make  unbelief  an  im- 
peachment of  the  veracity  of  God  :  the  evidence  of 
Christianity  must  be  this,  or  equivalent  to  this ;  mir- 
acles are  the  thing  itself,  the  collateral  proofs  are 
neither  the  thing  nor  its  equivalent.  What  they 
would  amount  to  by  themselves  as  demanding  assent, 
what  measure  of  assent  they  would  call  for,  or  justify, 
if  perfectly  appreciated,  we  cannot  determine;  but 
the  very  fact,  if  it  were  a  fact,  that  such  miraculous 
matters  as  those  of  substantive  Christianity  had  no 
miraculous  attestation,  would,  as  we  have  seen,  apart 
from  posterior  requisitions,  be  such  a  presumption 
against  its  truth,  as  no  evidence  could  overcome. 
Reason — nature  itself,  would,  to  the  last,  require  that 
attestation.  Christianity,  without  it,  would  be  in- 
credible.— But  secondly,  the  collateral  evidences  should 
not  be  urged  apart  from  the  direct  or  miraculous,  be- 
cause separate  from  the  latter  they  have,  and  can 
have,  in  fact,  no  existence.  The  collateral  evidences, 
like  every  thing  in  Christianity,  had  their  origin  and 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  ]  9 

source  in  the  miraculous,  arc  an  outflow  from  it,  and 
can  in  reality  be  no  more  separated  from  it,  or  used 
in  proof  against  its  necessity,  than  beams  of  sunlight 
be  separated  from,  and  then  made  an  argument  against, 
the  necessity  of  the  body  of  the  sun.  It  is  owing  to 
miracles  originally  and  determinantly,  that  the  collat- 
eral evidences  are  what  they  are.  We  know  not 
what  would  have  been  the  course  of  things  in  the 
history  of  Christianity,  had  it  not  originated  and 
started  in  miracles :  enough  that  we  know  what  was 
the  fact:  the  success  of  Christianity,  the  conversion 
of  the  Roman  empire,  the  lives  of  the  saints,  the  testi- 
mony of  the  noble  army  of  martyrs,  the  progress  of 
civilization  and  the  arts  under  Christian  institutions 
and  society,  the  whole  of  that  long  series  of  things 
reaching  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  pre- 
sent time,  which  comprehends  all  the  collateral  proofs 
of  Christianity, — instead  of  implying  that  miracles 
arc  not  necessary  as  direct  proofs  of  it,  infer  the  re- 
ality, if  not  the  necessity  also  of  miracles,  as  certainly 
as  the  fruit  and  foliage  of  a  tree  infer  the  reality  of 
the  tree.  Well,  therefore,  has  Butler  said,  the  col- 
lateral should  never  be  urged  apart  from  the  direct 
proofs  of  Christianity,  but  be  always  joined  with 
them.  Most  fitly  and  undeniably  has  this  other  im- 
portant word  been  spoken  by  the  same  great  author : 
"  Revelation  itself  is  miraculous,  and  miracles  are  the 
proof  of  it."  The  collateral  evidences,  apart  from 
miracles,  arc  not  the  proof  of  it,  and  as  such  should 
never  be  urged  or  relied  on. 

12.  But  after  all,  how  are  miracles  the  supreme, 


20  MIRACLES 

ultimate,  decisive  Test  of  the  truthfulness  of  Christi- 
anity, since  miracles  themselves  are  amenable  to  a 
test?  Be  it  that  they  are  decisive,  that  they  give 
absolute  certainty,  when  once  their  genuineness  is 
beyond  doubt :  still  if  there  are  true  miracles,  there 
are  also  false  ones ;  and  there  is  evidence  which,  if  it 
be  against  a  miracle,  no  miracle  can  countervail ;  that, 
namely,  of  self-evident  truth  and  goodness.  We  know 
from  Scripture  itself  (see  Deut.  xiii.  1-11)  that  if  the 
object  or  purpose  of  a  miracle  be  wrong,  the  testimony 
of  the  purpose  against  the  miracle  is  stronger  than 
the  testimony  of  the  miracle,  or  any  miracle  can  be,  in 
the  interest  of  the  purpose.  And  does  it  not  hence 
follow  that  miracles,  instead  of  proving  Christianity, 
are  dependent  on  Christianity  for  their  own  proof? 
that  if  we  know  the  miracles  to  be  true,  we  know 
this,  because  we  know  by  antecedent  and  higher  evi- 
dence, the  religion  to  be  true  ?  This  argument  seems 
to  have  convinced  some  persons  that  the  defence  of 
Christianity  is  complete,  independent  of  the  testimony 
of  miracles,  and  is  rather  impeded  than  facilitated 
by  it. 

13.  But  the  argument  is  a  fallacy.  It  assumes  as 
true  in  an  absolute  sense,  what  is  true  only  in  a  certain 
case.  Because  a  miracle,  so  called,  wrought  for  a  bad 
purpose,  is  already  condemned  by  its  purpose,  it  con- 
cludes that  every  miracle  depends  for  its  credibility 
on  knowledge  of  its  purpose ;  or,  in  ignorance  of  its 
purpose,  is  necessarily  undeterminative  as  to  its  own 
genuineness.  It  cannot  assert  its  own  reality  as  a 
miracle,  a  personal  or  direct  work  of  God,  unless  it  is 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  21 

known  to  what  intent  it  is  wrought.  The  argument 
is,  that  since  a  bad  purpose  condemns  an  alleged 
miracle  performed  in  its  favor,  no  miracle,  irrespective 
of  acquaintance  with  its  purpose,  can,  as  a  miracle, 
authenticate  itself.  The  sophistry  is  manifest.  It  is 
a  mere  truism,  that  no  miracle  can  countervail  the 
contradictory  testimony  of  a  bad  purpose  or  object ; 
it  is  simply  asserting  that  a  true  miracle  cannot  be 
wrought  in  attestation  of  a  bad  purpose;  that  God 
cannot  act,  cannot  exert  his  power  in  the  interest  of 
moral  evil ;  that  is  to  say,  cannot  deny  or  undeify 
Himself.  But  does  this  imply  that  He  can  never  act 
and  authenticate  the  act  as  His  own,  unless  it  is  al- 
ready known  why  or  to  what  intent  the  act  is  per- 
formed ?  Must  we  know  what  God  intends  by  His 
works,  before  we  can  be  certain  that  the  works  are 
indeed  His  ?  Can  He  do  no  works  capable  of  differ- 
encing themselves  absolutely  from  the  works  of  His 
creatures  ?  We  know  that  He  can  have  no  bad  de- 
sign ;  we  know  that  He  must  have  some  design,  not 
unworthy  of  Himself ;  but  must  He  acquaint  us  with 
His  designs,  before  He  can  perform  works  which  shall 
be  able  to  assert  themselves  as  distinctively  His  own  ? 
It  is  true  that  we  know  not  the  limit  of  finite  power ; 
but  cannot  infinite  power  go  beyond  that  limit,  and 
there  put  itself  forth  in  works  after  its  own  kind, 
which  no  finite  power  shall  be  able  to  equal,  or  suc- 
cessfully counterfeit  ?  And  by  such  self-authenticated 
works,  cannot  God  authenticate  a  revelation  which, 
as  such,  could  not  otherwise  be  adequately  attested  ? 
What  if  we  knew  no  more  as  to  the  purpose  of  Chris- 


22  MIRACLES 

tianity  than  that  it  is  not  a  bad  one,  or  one  unworthy 
of  the  Deity?  might  not  God,  without  acquainting  us 
further  with  its  object,  seal  it  as  a  revelation,  by  in- 
contestable miracles  ?  May  this  be  denied,  without 
limiting  the  Holy  One  ? 

14.  But  we  have  been  putting  the  matter  at  its 
greatest  disadvantage.  Our  knowledge  is  not  alto- 
gether negative  as  to  the  purpose  of  Christianity  ;  its 
purpose  is  worthy  of  its  miracles,  and  required  them 
for  its  fulfilment ;  and  whatever  may  be  said  of  a  sup- 
posed necessity  or  duty  of  testing  or  proving  miracles, 
here  are  miracles  which  are  their  own  proof.  Ad- 
mitting that  the  Scripture  miracles  were  really 
wrought,  we  may  as  well  deny  that  God  made  the 
world,  as  deny  that  He  was  their  author.  If  the  genu- 
ineness of  some  of  them,  apart  from  the  rest,  and  from 
the  system  to  which  they  all  belong,  might  seem  to 
be  questionable,  yet,  as  a  whole,  once  admit  their  re- 
ality, and  the  possibility  of  reasonable  doubt  as  to 
their  authorship  is  excluded.  If  the  plagues  of  Egypt, 
the  giving  of  the  manna,  the  crossing  of  the  Jordan, 
the  regression  of  the  sun,  the  swimming  of  the  iron, 
the  walking  on  the  sea,  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus, 
the  resurrection  of  our  Lord — if  these,  with  the  rest 
of  the  Scripture  miracles,  were  matters  of  fact,  he  who, 
admitting  them  as  such,  does  not  believe  in  the  relig- 
ion which  they  attest,  does  indeed  charge  God  Himself 
with  bearing  false  witness.  It  is  not  because  these 
miracles  do  not  assert  themselves  to  be  miracles  indeed, 
that  there  is  held  to  be  a  necessity  for  superior  or 
antecedent  proof.     The  Creation  itself  is  not  more  self- 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  23 

evidently  of  God,  than  the   testimonial  miracles  of 
Christianity. 

15.  Miracles,  then  —  mi  testable,  because  there  is 
nothing  to  test  them  by — miracles  wrought,  it  is  cer- 
tain, for  no  unworthy  purpose,  but  not  dependent  on 
a  knowledge  of  their  purpose  for  proof  of  their  reality, 
are  the  direct,  fundamental,  indispensable  proofs  of 
Christianity.  Whatever  is  peculiar  in  Christianity, 
would  never  have  been  known  had  it  not  been  reveal- 
ed, and  for  evidence  of  its  truth,  or  its  demonstrative 
certitude,  rests  at  last  on  testimonial  miracles.  Ex- 
cept as  ultimately  assured  by  these  divine  vouchers,  I 
have  no  sufficient  ground  for  rational  belief  as  to  any 
thing  distinctively  or  peculiarly  Christian.  I  do  not 
know  that  there  are  more  Persons  than  one  to  whom 
Deity  belongs,  or  that  Jesus  was  God,  or  that  His 
death  was  an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  mankind,  or 
that  the  dead  will  be  raised  by  Him  ;  I  do  not  know 
these  things  by  intuition,  or  because,  independently  of 
external  proofs,  they  are  true  to  my  reason  ;  I  know 
them  because  God,  having  revealed  them  by  His  Holy 
Spirit,  has  sealed  that  revelation  by  evidence  either 
in  itself  directly  miraculous^nrst,  last,  and  midst,  as 
its  ground. 

16.  After  all,  however,  it  may  be  objected  that  if 
Christianity  behooved  to  certify  itself  by  miracles,  it  be- 
hooved to  continue  miracles.  To  the  masses  of  mankind, 
for  whom  Christianity  was  chiefly  intended,  historical 
miracles,  as  far  as  their  ability  to  verify  them  is  con- 
cerned, are  as  nothing.  What,  to  the  common  people, 
as  to  power  of  verifying  them  to  themselves,  are  events 


24  MIRACLES 

of  the  far  distant  past?  Moreover,  as  a  general  fact, 
it  is  notorious  that  men  do  not  become  Christians  from 
personal  examination  of  the  testimony  of  miracles,  or 
the  historical  evidences  of  Christianity.  This  objec- 
tion is  virtually  answered  already.  The  miracles, 
though  performed  ages  ago,  are  present,  and  live  in  all 
the  ages,  and  even  to  the  unlearned  and  children,  wit- 
ness for  Christianity  to-day,  not  less  decisively  and 
strongly  than  they  did  at  first.  The  Scripture  mir- 
acles are  not  as  other  events  of  the  past,  in  respect  of 
the  antiquating  influence  of  time  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  and  those  events,  are  in  this  respect  a  contrast  to 
one  another.  The  miracles  were  not  left,  like  com- 
mon occurrences,  to  the  accidents  of  tradition,  or 
chance,  or  human  history  ;  they  were  not  detached, 
isolated,  inorganic  things  ;  they  all  pertained  to  one 
whole,  with  every  part  of  which,  as  with  the  whole, 
they  were  co-organized,  interconnected,  and,  as  it 
were,  interfused.  The  miracles  of  Christianity  are,  in 
fact,  as  we  have  already  said,  among  its  integrant, 
constitutive  elements  ;  they  live  in  its  life  ;  they  live 
in  the  Scriptures,  in  the  Church,  and  in  the  holy  ex- 
amples and  confession  of  members  of  the  Church  :  in 
preaching,  in  the  sacraments,  in  all  the  memorials  and 
ordinances  of  Christianity,  their  witnessing  presence 
and  power  are  conserved  and  felt.  Besides,  the  mir- 
acles of  power  which  attest  Christianity,  are  like 
Christianity  itself,  and  whatever  essentially  belongs 
to  it,  is  perpetually  quickened  and  rejuvenated  by  an- 
other species  of  miracles,  comprised  in  the  completion 
of  the  prophecies — miracles  of  knowledge,  which  are 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  25 

continually  being  accomplished,  as  time  advances  in 
its  course.  These  direct  and  fundamental  proofs  of 
Christianity,  in  their  demonstrative  force,  enter  into 
every  part  and  fibre  of  the  great  organism  which  they 
authenticate  as  divine,  and  at  once  verify  and  are  ver- 
ified by  it.  In  this  sense,  it  is  true  that  the  religion 
asserts  the  miracles,  as  well  as  the  miracles  the  relig- 
ion. The  proofs  of  Christianity,  direct  and  collateral, 
"  make  up,"  to  use  the  admirable  words  of  Butler,  "  all 
of  them  together,  one  argument,  the  conviction  arising 
from  which  kind  of  proof  may  be  compared  to  what 
they  call  the  effect  in  architecture,  or  other  works  of 
art— a  result  from  a  number  of  things  so  and  so  dis- 
posed, and  taken  into  one  view."  The  miracles  are  in 
the  view  with  all  the  rest,  attesting  all,  and  in  and 
through  all,  attesting  and  asserting  themselves  ;  and 
in  their  proper  influence,  no  less,  perhaps  even  more 
effective,  on  the  whole,  at  this  day,  than  they  were  to 
many  who  saw  them  performed.  There  is  no  need  of 
new  miracles  ;  indeed,  they  might  be  a  disadvantage, 
and,  after  a  short  time,  would,  in  effect,  cease  to  be 
miracles.  If  the  old  miracles,  certified  as  they  are  to 
all,  do  not  convince  men,  new  ones  doubtless  would 
also  fail  to  do  it.  "  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the 
prophets  "—if  Moses  and  the  prophets,  with  the  mir- 
acles which  attested  and  still  attest  their  mission,  are 
disregarded  by  them— "  neither  would  they  be  per- 
suaded though  one  rose  from  the  dead."  Greater, 
doubtless,  to  us,  is  the  advantage  from  the  Scripture 
miracles,  greater  as  they  lie  together  in  the  one  view 
of  which  we  have  spoken ;  more  decisive  as  evidencing 
2  . 


2G  Mill  ACL  ES 

the  truth  of  revealed  religion,  than  would  be  the  repe- 
tition of  fresh  miracles  every  day.  Miracles  prove 
Christianity,  but  they  may  fail  to  make  converts  to 
it.  Referring  to  the  too  common  results  of  miracles, 
Pascal  has  said,  "  the  purpose  of  miracles  is  not  to 
convert,  but  to  condemn.77 

17.  The  objection  owes  what  of  force  it  may  seem 
to  have,  to  great  indiscrimination  ;  it  does  not  distin- 
guish between  what  the  evidence  of  Christianity  be- 
hooves to  be  in  itself,  and  the  way  and  the  degree  in 
which  it  becomes  effective  in  individual  converts — be- 
tween the  necessity  of  its  having  a  sufficient  ground 
for  its  authoritative  demand  for  faith,  and  the  mea- 
sures and  workings  of  faith,  on  the  part  of  those  in 
whom  the  demand  is  met.  To  make  the  former  com- 
plete, the  specific  testimony  of  miracles  is  necessary  ; 
the  latter,  though  the  influence  of  miracles,  as  before 
explained,  is  never  wanting  in  it,  vary  indefinitely 
with  different  persons.  In  no  one  is  faith  commensur- 
ate with  the  objective  demand  for  it ;  nor  is  it  alike  as 
to  its  origin  and  advances  in  all.  St.  Augustine,  but 
for  miracles  historically  verified,  to  and  by  himself, 
could  not  have  been  a  Christian  ;  the  generality  do 
not  distinctively  feel  the  necessity  of  miracles,  or  for- 
mally recognize  their  specific  influence  and  function  as 
the  supreme  Test  and  proof  of  Christianity.  They 
also,  in  a  true  sense,  would  not  believe,  but  for  mir- 
acles, but  it  is  the  miraculous,  as  integrant  and  inter- 
fused in  the  whole  of  the  evidence,  and  pervading  the 
essence  of  Christianity,  that  their  faith  apprehends 
and  rests  in.     It  is  the  "  one  argument"  of  which  But- 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  27 

ler  speaks,  "made  up  of  all  the  proofs  taken  together," 
the  conviction  arising  from  which  he  compares  to 
what  they  call  the  effect  in  architecture,  or  other  works 
of  art.  This  it  is  that  generally  produces  faith,  when 
it  becomes  a  personal  reality.  Different  minds  may 
be  variously  affected  by  it ;  some  more  by  one  part, 
some  more  by  another ;  some  in  a  larger,  some  in  a 
smaller  measure ;  but  in  every  case,  the  efficiency  of 
the  whole,  as  such,  is  felt,  and  the  result  is  the  product 
of  the  whole.  It  is  so  from  the  fact  that  Christianity, 
with  its  proofs,  is  a  single,  living  organism,  each  part 
of  which  interconnects  itself  with  every  other,  giving 
every  other  part  an  influential,  life-producing,  if  not  a 
distinctly  recognized  presence. 

18.  This  distinction  between  the  fundamental  ne- 
cessity of  miracles,  as  outward  proofs  or  seals  of  testi- 
mony, and  the  influence  of  these  and  the  other  evi- 
dences in  the  genesis  of  faith,  or  in  producing  faith, 
in  different  persons,  solves  at  once  the  objection 
before  us.  It  was  needful  that  the  demonstration 
of  Christianity  should  be  absolute,  irrespective  of 
men's  belief  or  disbelief;  thus  only  could  be  jus- 
tified its  absolute  claim  to  belief,  and  its  denun- 
ciation of  all  unbelief.  How  it  was  to  fare  in  the 
world,  what  fruit  its  evidence  was  to  produce  in  the 
minds  of  men,  or  which  part  of  the  evidence  was  to  be 
first  or  most  effective,  or  what  in  the  beginning  and 
progress  of  a  life  of  faith  was  to  have  ascendant  pow- 
er, depended  on  the  different  individualities  of  men, 
and  the  contingencies  of  time  and  circumstances. 

19.  On  this  point,  it  is  to  be  further  and  distinctly 


28  MIRACLES 

remembered,  and  strongly  accented,  that  in  every  case 
of  the  subjective  demonstration  of  Christianity,  there 
is  another  agency  concerned  besides  that  of  the  out- 
ward evidence.     It  is  not  of  themselves  alone   that 
men  believe  :  faith  is  the  gift  of  God.     It  is  the  in- 
ward demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power,  that 
makes  the  external  demonstration  fruitful.     Amidst 
the  full  effulgence  of  outward  evidence,  "if  thine  eye 
be  evil,  thy  whole  body  will  be  full  of  darkness." 
Without  the  subjective  prerequisites, — to  use  the  words 
of    Coleridge,    without  "  that  predisposing  warmth, 
which  renders  the  understanding  susceptible  of  the 
specific  impressions  from  the   history,  and  from  all 
other  outward  seals  of  testimony,"  the  whole  of  the 
evidence,  collateral  and  miraculous,  internal  and  ex- 
ternal, will  be  without  avail,  except  to  condemn,  as 
Pascal  said  of  the  miracles,  in  particular.     And  it  is 
also  certain,  and  equally  essential  as  bearing  on  the 
topic  before  us,  that  where  the  inward  witnessing  of 
the  Spirit  has  place ;  where,  to  adopt  Coleridge's  lan- 
guage again,  there  is  "  a  true  efficient  conviction  of  a 
moral  truth — the  creation  of  a  new  heart,  which  col- 
lects the  energies  of  a  man's  whole  being  in  the  focus 
of  the  conscience,"  where  there  "  is  emphatically,  that 
leading  of  the  Father,  without  which  no  man  can  come 
to  Christ,"  there  the  dominion  of  the  entire  external 
evidence  is  actualized.     Christianity,  now,  has  all  its 
evidences  at  command,  and  they  do  their  work.     The 
miracles,  whether  distinctively  verified  or  not,  work 
together  with  all  the  rest.      There  is  nothing   now 
that  does  not  bear  witness  to  Christianity.     Nature 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  29 

itself,  under  the  power  of  this  inward  demonstration, 
this  "  one  essential  miracle."  asserts  the  Supernatu- 
ral: 

"  Nature  is  Christian  :  preaches  to  mankind, 
And  bids  dead  matter  aid  us  in  our  creed." 

20.  On  the  whole,  we  are  brought  by  the  discussion 
we  have  been  engaged  in,  to  the  conclusion  that  ob- 
jections to  miracles  as  proofs  of  Christianity  presup- 
pose and  in  fact  have  as  their  ground  objections  to 
veritable  Christianity  itself.  As  naturalism  cannot 
but  make  objections  to  miracles  as  the  proper  proof  of 
religion,  so,  reciprocally,  when  there  are  these  objec- 
tions, the  religion  adhered  to,  if  any,  is  that  of  natural- 
ism. An  objector  to  miracles  as  proof  of  doctrine, 
cannot  be  an  intelligent  believer  in  such  a  doctrine  as 
that  of  a  plurality  of  Persons  in  the  God-head,  or  of 
the  two  Natures  in  Christ,  or  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead.  He  ought  not  to  call  himself  a  Christian  ;  not 
even  a  neochristian,  unless  he  intend  by  the  prefix  to 
deny  that  he  is  a  real  Christian  at  all.  The  only  re- 
ligion which,  after  discarding  miracles  as  proofs,  has 
any  ground  of  credibility  in  it,  is  that  which,  in  the 
words  of  the  Westminster  Review,  has  its  attestation 
"in  the  essential  unity  and  self  consistency  of  our 
moral  and  spiritual  nature,  opening  more  and  more 
with  the  progressive  education  of  the  race,  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  fundamental  laws  on  which  it  rests, 
and  which  we  learn  partly  through  mutual  intercourse 
and  sympathy,  partly  through  the  awakening  influence 
of  superior  minds,  on  those  that  are  less  developed  and 
advanced."     We  would  not  press  the  inexorable  con- 


30  MIRACLES 

sequences  of  a  theory  on  those  who  shrink  from  them  ; 
all  who  disparage  miracles,  are  not,  we  must  hope,  ab- 
solute naturalists,  yet  we  cannot  but  stand  in  doubt, 
if  not  of  the  substantial  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian truth,  at  least  of  the  logical  consistency,  of  those 
who  say  they  would  rather  have  Christianity  without 
than  with  the  miracles,  or  that  the  credibility  of  mir- 
acles depends  on  doctrine  rather  than  the  credibility 
of  doctrine  on  miracles.  Nor  can  we  adopt  the  for- 
mula, as  applicable  to  a  supernatural  revelation,  that 
"  the  miracle  must  witness  for  itself  and  the  doctrine 
must  witness  for  itself,  and  then  the  first  is  capable  of 
witnessing  for  the  second."*  We  take  Butler  as  com- 
plete ;  Revelation  itself  is  miraculous  and  miracles  are 
its  proof.  If  miracles  do  indeed  witness  for  them- 
selves, that  is  to  say,  assert  themselves,  demonstra- 
tively, to  be  direct  works  of  God,  they  can  witness  for 
that  which  to  us,  through  our  ignorance,  does  not  wit- 
ness for  itself,  if  by  the  will  of  God,  they  are  wrought 
for  that  end.  Revelation,  apart  from  testimonial  mir- 
acles, does  not  witness  for  itself  to  us  :  in  this  isolation 
it  would  not  be  true  to  human  reason.  The  proper 
statement  is  :  "  the  miracle  must  witness  for  itself;  the 
doctrine,  apart  from  the  miracle,  does  not  witness  for 
itself ;  the  first,  by  itself,  must  witness  for  the  second.'' 
In  the  evidence  of  miracles  all  other  evidence  has  its 
ground  and  its  beginning.  Without  miracles  Chris- 
tianity is  indemonstrable. 

21.  Before  dismissing  the  subject  we  would  repro- 
duce, for  the  purpose  cf  emphasising  with  a.  specific 

*  Trench. 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  31 

reference,  what  1ms  already  been  expressed  with  some 
particularity  as  to  the  measure  or  fulness  of  the  assent 
demanded  by  Christianity.  What  we  would  further 
say  on  this  point  is,  that,  while  this  assent  indicates 
the  nature  of  the  proof  of  Christianity,  it  indicates  at 
the  same  time  the  proper  task  of  a  Christian  apolo- 
gist. Whatever  may  be  the  measure  or  form  of  men's 
belief  or  disbelief  of  Christianity,  there  can,  as  we 
have  urged,  be  no  question  that  the  assent  which  with 
infinite  authority  it  challenges  of  all,  is  that  of  unqual- 
ified, absolute,  prompt  assurance.  Most  assuredly 
therefore  he  who  sets  himself  to  defend  Christianity, 
undertakes,  if  he  knows  what  he  is  doing,  to  make  out 
a  sufficiency  in  its  evidences  to  produce,  not  a  convic- 
tion of  the  probability  or  bare  credibility,  but  a  con- 
viction of  the  absolute  certainty  of  its  truth.  He  must 
present  evidence  proportional  to  the  assent  required. 
If  he  does  not  do  this,  his  attempt  is  a  failure.  If  he 
only  gives  reason  for  a  preponderant  conviction,  a 
balance  of  probability,  in  favor  of  Christianity,  or  for 
an  assent  short  of  a  full  sense  of  the  certainty  of  its 
truth, he  has  not  defended  Christianity;  he  has  at  best 
only  approximated  a  defence  of  it.  Without  contro- 
versy Christianity  cannot  be  defended,  if  its  evidence 
be  not  in  itself  and  to  a  just  appreciation  of  it,  abso- 
lutely demonstrative.  The  claims  of  Christianity  to 
positive,  undoubting  belief,  cannot  be  otherwise  justi- 
fied. "  If,"  says  Stillingfleet,  "  there  be  no  evidences 
given  sufficient  to  carry  the  minds  of  men  beyond  mere 
probability,  what  sin  can  it  be  in  them  to  disbelieve 
who  cannot  be  obliged  to  believe  as  true  what  is  only 


32  MIRACLES 

discovered  as  probable?"  Yet  a  recent  writer*  on 
the  study  of  the  evidences  has  said  that  to  require  cer- 
tainty as  the  just  result  of  the  evidence  of  Christian- 
ity, is  to  require  an  assent  out  of  proportion  to  the 
evidence :  as  if  there  might  be  evidence  greater  than 
the  direct  testimony  of  God.  And  have  not  defences 
of  Christianity,  so  called,  works  on  the  evidences,  too 
often  contented  themselves  with  this  idea  as  the  ut- 
most which  the  evidence  can  extend  to  ?  And  why, 
but  from  not  thinking  with  Butler,  or  forgetting  what 
he  has  said,  that  the  collateral  evidences  ought  never 
to  be  urged  apart  from  the  direct,  the  miraculous 
ones,  but  to  be  always  joined  with  them  ?  The  col- 
lateral evidences,  by  themselves,  would  not  warrant 
the  assent  demanded  by  Christianity ;  but  keep  the  two 
kinds  of  evidences  always  united,  let  the  witnessing 
virtue  of  miracles  be  as  it  is  in  truth  retained  in  every 
part  of  the  evidence ;  let  all  the  evidence  involve  and 
rest  upon  miracles  as  its  substratum,  what  then,  as  to 
the  nature,  the  measure  of  the  assent  demanded  by  it? 
Does  the  evidence  then  come  short  of  substantiating 
its  claim  to  a  sense  of  certainty,  as  its  proper  counter- 
part in  man  ?  Let  men  apprehend  this  as  the  fact  re- 
specting the  evidence,  and  ought  they  to  be  less  cer 
tain  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  than  of  that  of  natural 
science,  or  of  the  existenee  of  the  world,  or  of  their 
own  existence  ?  In  the  words  of  Stillingfleet,  we  ask, 
"  can  there  be  greater  evidence  that  a  testimony  is  in- 
fallible, than  that  it  is  the  testimony  of  God  Him- 
self?" Let  us  not  disparage  the  books  on  the  evi- 
*  Aids  to  Faith. 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  33 

dencea ;  there  are  among  books  few  of  greater  power; 
they  triumphantly  refute  all  objections  ;  they  are  vic- 
torious in  all  controversies  ;  they  do  completely  what 
they  undertake  to  do ;  they  overwhelm  infidelity  with 
its  logical  incousistencies  and  absurdities;  but  after 
all,  what  for  the  most  part  have  they  achieved  or  aim- 
ed at  in  the  battle  of  the  evidences,  but  just  to 
show  the  bare  credibility  of  the  religion  attested  by 
them?  When  a  spiritual  man,  after  pondering,  doubt- 
less not  without  edification  and  delight,  the  profound 
and  masterly  treatises  of  the  apologists,  comes  into 
the  presence  of  the  great  Object  itself,  in  whose  inter- 
est they  labor  so  well,  and  looks  directly  upon  the 
Miracle  Christianity,  encompassed  by  countless  testi- 
monial miracles,  how  feeble  is  language  to  express  the 
difference  of  which  he  now  becomes  conscious,  between 
the  title  of  Christianity  to  assent,  and  the  measure  of 
assent  which  these  works  contend  for  ?  And  whence 
the  difference,  if  not  from  inappreciation  of  the  place 
and  position  of  miracles  in  the  evidence  ?  It  is  in 
two  respects  with  the  evidence  of  Christianity,  as  with 
that  of  the  being  of  God  ;  both  are  alike  demonstrative 
in  asserting  the  reality  of  their  objects,  and  both  alike 
unheeded  or  rejected,  or  dimly  seen,  even  by  the  prin- 
ces of  human  wisdom. 

22.  We  add  one  remark.  Is  not  a  reassertion  of 
the  miraculous  in  the  evidence  of  revealed  religion  an 
especial  desideratum  of  the  times?  If  it  be  possible, 
should  not  the  Scripture  miracles  be  made  to  reappear 
as  living  realities,  before  the  eyes  of  this  generation  ? 
Otherwise  where  before  long  will  be  faith  in  revela- 
2* 


34  MIRACLES 

tion?  Natural  religion,  even,  seems  to  be  standing 
"  a  tiptoe,"  ready  to  forsake  the  sphere  of  religious 
philosophy.  What  more  notorious,  than  that  the  re- 
ligious philosophy  of  the  day  is  mainly  pantheistic  ? 
"It  is  an  admitted  fact," said  Isaac  Taylor  some  years 
since,  "  that  already  all,  or  nearly  all,  educated  men 
from  end  to  end  of  continental  Europe,  those  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  alone  excepted,  are  either  open 
pantheists,  or  are  kept  from  avowing  themselves  to  be 
so,  by  motives  of  conventional  propriety,  or  of  policy." 
The  Anglo-Saxons  themselves  are  becoming  unstead- 
fast  in  belief  in  a  Personal  God.  Men  of  high  culture, 
English  and  American,  are  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  no  Divine  Being  different  from  the  world, 
and  nothing  in  a  proper  sense  supernatural.  Not 
many  of  these  as  yet  profess  themselves  to  be  pantheists, 
but  leading  minds  among  them  employ  reasonings  and 
forms  of  expression,  which  involve  pantheism  inevit- 
ably, and  not  obscurely  or  indirectly.  It  may  be 
traced  too  perceptibly  in  some  of  the  recent  review 
articles.  Professor  Powell  tells  us  that  "  to  attempt 
to  reason  from  law  to  volition,  from  order  to  active 
power,  from  universal  reason  to  distinct  personality, 
from  design  to  self-existence,  from  intelligence  to  in- 
finite perfection,  is  in  reality  to  adopt  grounds  of 
argument  and  speculation  entirely  beyond  those  of 
strict  philosophic  inference."  Pantheism  on  a  large 
and  increasing  scale  is  the  manifest  goal  to  which 
modern  thinking  on  religion  is  tending.  The  fact  is 
on  all  sides  seen  and  confessed.  It  is  beginning  to  be 
felt  beyond  the  educated  classes ;  the  people  at  large 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  35 

are  becoming  more  or  less  acquainted  and  pleased 
with  pantheistic  speculations.  What  is  to  be  done  ? 
Something  surely  besides  what  has  been  or  what  is 
being  done.  The  means  now  and  hitherto  used  have 
failed  even  to  check  the  progress  of  the  deadly  error ; 
it  was  never  more  triumphant  than  at  the  present 
moment.  To  what  other  means  may  we  look?  Shall 
we  expect  new  theophanies,  new  manifestations  of  the 
supernatural  and  the  miraculous,  to  confound  the 
naturalism  on  all  sides  so  predominant  ?  What  were 
this  but  to  make  incomplete  or  transitory  the  original 
attestation  of  Christianity ;  to  make  obsolete  or  in- 
valid all  the  miracles  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments ?  What  were  it,  moreover,  but  to  make  void 
our  own  highest  responsibility  and  privilege;  to  cease 
from  personal  dignity  and  worth ;  to  distrust  and 
count  as  nothing  the  indwelling  power  and  grace  of 
the  Holy  Spirit;  in  short,  to  require  unnecessary  mira- 
cles ;  that  is,  in  principle,  to  put  miracles  among  com- 
mon tilings ;  to  make  them  indeed  miracles  no  longer? 
This  were  virtually  to  become  pantheists  ourselves. 
Still  the  living  reality,  the  influential  presence  of  the 
miraculous  in  the  evidence  of  Christianity,  the  just 
antitheton  of  naturalistic  tendencies  and  successes, — 
this  is  clearly  indicated  and  imperatively  demanded, 
as  their  proper  remedy.  Never  more  than  in  this  our 
day,  should  the  "City  of  our  God"  be  known 
and  read  of  men  by  its  name,  Jehovah-Shammah, 
the  Lord  ts  there.  It  will  not  be  so  known  and 
read  without  direct,  infallible  revelations  of  the  Divine 
Presence.     "  Out  of  Zion  the  perfection  of  beauty," 


36  MIRACLES 

the  excellent  glory  itself  must  shine,  and  it  will  not 
shine  thence,  except  in  its  own  proper  manifestations ; 
the  natural,  simply,  does  not  directly  reveal,  does  not 
attest  the  Infinite  or  Divine.  Naturalism  will  be 
efficiently  confuted  by  nothing  but  an  actual  exhibi- 
tion and  perception  of  the  miraculous,  the  proper  seal 
of  God.  It  is  far  from  being  certain  that  the  presence 
of  the  miraculous  would  impart  that  perception  of  it ; 
but  its  presence,  its  essential  or  influential  presence,  is 
necessary.  All  just  religious  conviction,  all  true  piety, 
consists  essentially  in  a  sense  of  divinity  or  the  mira- 
culous as  at  once  inhering  in  and  attesting  revela- 
tion ;  the  central  Miracle  Christianity,  authenticated 
as  directly  of  God  by  its  accompanying  testimonial 
miracles.  And  may  this  sense  be  produced  in  the 
absence  of  its  objective  cause,  the  miraculously  attested 
Miracle  itself?  Must  not  that  Miracle  by  some  means 
display  itself  anew  ?  And  by  what  other  means,  since 
new  miracles  are  not  to  be  looked  for  but  by  reasserting, 
producing  anew,  the  testimony  of  the  ancient  miracles? 
But  how  is  this  to  be  done?  Is  it  a  possibility?  Can 
Christianity,  after  eighteen  centuries,  reproduce  its 
miraculous  attestations  as  at  first?  The  question  has 
been  answered.  Christianity,  in  itself,  or  as  an  objec- 
tive reality,  has  its  first  life  always  ;  its  facts,  its  doc- 
trines, its  testimony,  all  live  in,  perpetuate,  and  are 
perpetuated  by  that  life :  therefore  nothing  in  substan- 
tive Christianity  can  become  stale  or  obsolete  ;  by  its 
constitutive  elements,  it  is  like  its  Author,  in  respect  of 
time,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever :  so  it  is 
in  itself,  and  so  it  seems  to  be  to  every  one  whose 


THE  PROOF  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  37 

understanding  has  been  opened  to  understand  it.  To 
the  eye  of  faith,  Christianity  is  as  novel,  as  wonderful 
now  as  it  was  to  the  disciples  on  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
If  in  the  primitive  vigor  and  fruitfulness  of  faith  Chris- 
tianity should  reappear  in  the  life  of  the  Church,  would 
there  be  any  decrepitude,  any  wrinkle  or  infirmity 
of  age,  any  trace  of  the  wear  or  waste  of  time  in  its 
aspect?  The  doctrines,  the  examples,  and  with  all 
the  rest,  the  miracles,  would  they  not  live  again,  as 
before  the  very  eyes  of  men  ?*  Would  not  this  be 
the  certain,  the  necessary  consequence,  even  if  to  the 
miracles  distinctively  no  special  attention  were  drawn? 
But  as  the  times  call  with  such  emphasis  for  the  spe- 
cific witness  of  miracles,  as  it  is  specially  character- 
istic of  the  times  to  disown  and  deny  God's  direct 
testimony  to  His  revelation,  so  abundantly  given,  and 
this  for  the  reason  that  His  revelation  itself  is  disbe- 
lieved— this  fact  would   make  it   impossible  to  the 

*  "  Methought  I  saw,  with  great  evidence,  from  the  four  evan- 
gelists, the  wonderful  works  of  God  in  giving  Jesus  Christ  to 
save  us,  from  His  conception  and  birth  even  to  His  second  com- 
ing to  judgment ;  methought  I  teas  as  if  I  had  seen  Him  bom,  as 
if  I  had  seen  Him  grow  up,  as  if  I  had  seen  Him  walk  through 
this  world  from  the  cradle  to  the  cross.  .  .  .  When  I  have 
considered  also  the  truth  of  His  resurrection,  and  have  remem- 
bered that  word,  '  Touch  me  not,  Mary,'  etc.,  I  have  seen  as  if  He 
had  leaped  out  of  the  grave's  mouth,'"  etc.  (Bunyan's  Life.) 
See  also  Chrysostom  on  Gal.  iii.  1  :  "  It  was  not  in  the  country  of 
the  Galatians,  but  in  Jerusalem,  that  He  was  crucified  :  how  then 
does  he  (Paul)  say  among  you  ?  To  demonstrate  the  power  of 
faith,  which  is  able  to  see  even  distant  objects.  And  he  does  not 
say,  '  was  crucified.'  but  '  was  painted  crucified,'  showing  that  by 
the  eyes  of  faith  they  beheld  more  distinctly  than  some  who 
were  present  and  saw  the  transactions." 


38  MIRACLES 

revived  Church  not  to  have  a  very  prominent  refer- 
ence in  all  the  workings  of  her  life,  inward  and  out- 
ward, in  her  thoughts,  her  prayers,  her  discourses,  her 
books,  the  labors  of  her  ministry,  to  the  reproduction 
of  the  miraculous  testimony,  the  sign-manual  of  God 
Himself.  And  the  result  would  be  sure  :  with  corres- 
ponding prominence,  the  miracles  would  return  and 
take  their  proper  position  among  the  evidences.  The 
constancy  of  nature  is  not  less  to  be  doubted  than  that 
rejuvenated  Christianity,  novel  and  fresh  as  at  first, 
with  the  advantage  of  an  experience  as  old  as  time 
and  not  older  than  opulent  in  teachings  of  Divine  wis- 
dom and  prudence,  would  renew  its  pristine  demon- 
strativeness  and  power;  and  if  still  confronted  by 
adversaries,  of  whatever  number  or  whatever  name, 
— neo-christians,  naturalists,  pantheists,  atheists, — 
would  by  their  opposition,  however  maintained,  be  no 
more  retarded  in  its  triumphant  advances,  than  the 
sun  is  retarded  in  his  circuit  of  the  heavens  by  the 
mists  and  vapors  of  the  atmosphere.  "  Woe  unto 
him  that  striveth  with  his  Maker.  Let  the  potsherds 
strive  with  the  potsherds  of  the  earth." 


II. 

NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. -I. 

Nothing  is  more  emphatically  taught  in  Scripture* 
than  that  "  the  grace  of  God  which  bringeth  salvation" 
could  not  have  been  bestowed  arbitrarily,  or  without 
regard  to  principles  of  fitness  and  propriety,  as  to 
the  MODE  of  procedure  ;  but  wras  under  the  highest 
necessity  of  adhering  to  a  suitable  manner  in  ac- 
complishing its  object.  God,  though  above  every 
other  necessity,  could  not  disregard  His  own  character 
nor  act  in  a  way  unworthy  of  Himself,  as  the  Lord  and 
Maker  of  all.  Such  a  way  is  conceivable,  but  it  was 
not  possible,  because  not  consistent  with  the  essential 
perfections  of  the  Divine  Nature.  It  would  not  have 
become  the  Most  High. 

2.  It  may  have  been  well,  if  not  necessary,  on  our 
account  also,  that  respect  should  have  been  had  to 
method.  The  way  of  showing  favor  is  itself  often  of 
more  value  than  all  particular  benefits  ;  indeed,  essen- 
tial to  the  permanent  value  of  every  benefit.  A  family 
may  have  received  a  father's  generosity  in  the  amplest 
measures,  and  yet  be  less   indebted  to  him  for  this, 

*  Heb.  ii.  10,  14,  17.     Gal.  iii.  21,  etc. 

(39) 


40  NATURE  OF  TIIE  ATONEMENT. 

than  for  his  having  always  bestowed  his  offices  of 
kindness  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  so  many  in- 
stances of  wisdom  in  himself — so  many  exemplary 
lessons  to  his  household,  as  to  the  paramount  value  of 
character.  It  is  often  better  that  things  in  themselves 
very  desirable  should  be  left  undone,  rather  than  be 
done  in  an  improper  manner.  Might  not,  then, 
the  Divine  favor  towards  man  have  proved  no 
favor  in  the  end,  if  God  had  disregarded  mode  in 
conferring  it  ? 

3.  It  was  not  only  well,  but  absolutely  indispensable 
for  our  salces,  that  method  should  have  been  observed. 
Had  not  God  consulted  his  own  honor,  He  would 
not  ultimately  have  benefited  mankind.  God  is 
Himself  the  portion  of  man ;  but  God  dishonor- 
ing Himself  were  no  more  God.  No  happiness,  no 
possibility  of  it,  would  be  left  to  man,  if  God  should 
do  an  unwise  thing,  or  a  thing  on  any  account  misbe- 
coming the  Supreme  Majesty  of  heaven  and  earth. 
The  benevolence  of  God,  His  power  to  bless  mankind, 
depends  on  His  always  acting  worthily  of  Himself. 

4.  But  the  Scripture*  teaches  that  the  glory  of  God, 
"  the  essential  perfections  of  the  Divine  nature,"t  re- 
quired, that  He  should  not  only  have  had  respect  to 
manner,  but  have  limited  Himself  to  one  manner 
namely,  "  the  making  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  per- 

*  In  the  text  before  referred  to  and  others. 

f  See  Heb.  ii.  10.  We  have  not  exaggerated  the  force  of  the 
word  "  became  "  in  this  passage.  "  The  word  signifies  that  de- 
cency and  becomingness,  which  justice,  reason  and  equity  require  ; 
so  that  the  contrary  would  be  unmeet,  because  unequal  and  un- 
just.    Thus  every  one's  duty,  that  which  is  incumbent  on  him, 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  41 

feet  through  sufferings."  For  this— this,  and  no 
other — the  necessity  was  the  same  as  that  God  be  un- 
changeably God,  a  Being  of  infinite  perfection,  who 
will  not  dishonor  Himself  by  conduct  unbecoming  or 
unsuitable  in  such  a  Being. 

5.  The  doctrine  we  are  to  explain,  takes  for  granted 
concerning  this  plan,  that  it  embraces  what  evangel- 
ical  theology  has  termed  an   atonement    for  sin. 
By  this  phrase  is  intended,  an  amende,  a  compensation, 
or  satisfaction,  for  the  remission  or  selling  aside  of  the 
condign  punishment  of  sin  ;  or  the  punishment  of  the 
sinner  according  to  his  desert.     The  idea  of  Atone- 
ment is  sometimes  identified  with  simple  at-one-ment, 
or  reconciliation  ;  but  if  the  design  be  to   exclude 
what  has  now  been  expressed,  it  will  not  be  pretended 
that  this  is  the  evangelical  or  orthodox  meaning  of 
the  term.     The  Atonement,  as  commonly  held  by  the 
Church,  rests  on  the  assumptions  that  man  is  a  sinner, 
and  that  there  is  in  the  nature  of  sin  that  which  de- 
serves and   calls  for  punishment;  and   is  something 
which  comes  in  place  of  punishment,  supposing  this  to 
be  forborne.     Our  object  does  not  require  us  to  ex- 
amine the  assumptions  just  mentioned.     Taking   as 
conceded,  that  man  is  a  sinner,  and  that  sin  incurs 
punishment,  we  are  to  show  the  principles  or  nature 
of  that  Atonement  or  satisfaction  for  the  remission  of 

in  his  place  and  station,  is  that  which  becomes  him  ;  and  thence 
in  the  New  Testament,  that  which  is  not  Kara  to  irpinov,  thus 
decent,  is  condemned  as  evil,  1  Cor.  xi.  13 ;  1  Tim.  ii.  10 :  and 
itself  is  condemned  as  a  rule  of  virtue,  Mat.  iii.  15  ;  Eph.  v,-3." — 
Dr.  Oven,  in  loc.  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  394. 


42  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

punishment,  which,  wo  assume,  the  way  of  the  Divine 
mercy  to  mankind  embraces. 

6.  We  ground  the  necessity  for  an  atonement,  under 
the  circumstances  supposed,  in  the  perfection  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  and  the  necessity  that  God  always  act 
worthily  of  Himself.  Supposing  that  there  is  for- 
giveness with  Him, — that  He  may  and  does  remit  the 
punishment  of  sin,  God,  we  say,  owes  it  to  Himself,  as 
the  Best  and  Greatest,  the  Lord  and  Creator  of  all 
things,  to  require  an  atonement.  Sin  calls  for  pun- 
ishment, and  God  cannot  disregard  the  demand  ;  can- 
not— if  it  be  necessary  that  the  Deity  retain  the  glory 
of  His  nature  inviolate.  Of  this  the  proof  is  in  itself. 
The  difference  between  good  and  evil,  holiness  and 
sin,  is  essential  and  immutable,  and  to  this  differ- 
ence, no  upright  being  can  be  insensible  ;  neither 
can  such  a  being  refrain,  if  occasion  arise,  from  ex- 
pressing appropriately,  approbation  of  holiness,  and 
hatred  of  sin.  The  Most  High,  then,  infinite  as  He  is 
in  moral  perfection,  and  holding  the  provinces  of 
Lawgiver  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  was  under  a  neces- 
sity— that  repeatedly  mentioned,  of  being  true  to 
Himself  in  His  mode  of  agency, — to  manifest,  in  fitting 
measure  and  form,  His  disapprobation  of  sin.  It  be- 
came Him  to  do  this,  in  the  first  place,  in  His  Law — 
the  rule  of  life  which  He  gave  to  man  ;  and.  in  the 
next  place,  he  must  do  the  same,  if  there  be  occasion, 
in  administering  and  executing  His  Law.  It  is  impos- 
sible, that  either  in  the  one  or  the  other  province,  He 
should  fail  to  express  His  estimate  of  the  demerit  or 
turpitude  of  sin  ;  much  more  do,  or  omit  to  do,  any- 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  43 

thing-,  which  might  imply,  that  his  His  abhorrence  of 
sin  is  less  than  it  should  be,  or  may  be  changed  or 
abated.  These  things  have  their  proof  in  themselves, 
and  cannot  be  denied.  But  if  they  be  true,  how  may 
God,  acting  towards  His  creatures  as  Lord  and  Judge 
of  all,  dispense  with  the  punishment  of  sin  ?  A  pen- 
alty the  law  must  have  ;  and  where  it  has  been  in- 
curred by  transgression,  how  may  it  consist  with  the 
moral  rectitude  of  the  Deity,  not  to  execute  the 
penalty  ?  Is  not  punishment  in  this  case  necessary 
to  the  just  revelation  of  the  Divine  displeasure 
against  sin  ? 

7.  But  the  fact  lies  before  us,  and  is  admitted  by 
all,  that  punishment  is  foreborne  ;  that  mercy  in  the 
Divine  administration"  rejoices  against  judgment,"  and 
opens  the  gates  of  Heaven  to  those  who  have  incurred 
condemnation  to  eternal  death.  There  is  remission  of 
punishment  for  rebellious  men.  But  how  might  this 
take  place,  without  dishonor  to  Him,  "  for  whom  are 
all  things  and  by  whom  are  all  things  ?"  The  primary 
and  natural  means  of  maintaining  His  honor  being  set 
aside,  does  a  possibility  remain  of  securing  the  end  by 
any  other  means  ?  Our  doctrine  gives  this  question 
an  affirmative  reply.  It  asserts  there  was  one  other 
means, — namely,  an  Atonement,  by  which  the  end  could 
be  and  was  secured.  And  because  the  end  must  be 
secured,  and  could  be  by  no  other  means,  an  Atone- 
ment in  order  to  the  forgiveness  of  mankind  was  as 
necessary,  as  that  God  do  nothing  incompatible  with 
His  essential  excellency. 

8.  But  how  could  even  an  Atonement  answer  the 


44  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

purpose  ?  The  careful  consideration  of  this  question 
is  necessary  to  our  design.  To  see  the  truth  distinctly 
here,  is  to  understand  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
Let  it  be  remembered,  then,  what  the  precise  thing 
was  that  would  have  put  the  Divine  conduct  out  of 
harmony,  out  of  consistency,  with  the  essential  perfec- 
tion of  God,  in  case  of  an  arbitrary  remission  of  pun- 
ishment. It  was  just  this,  that  there  would  in  that 
case  have  been  no  appropriate  revelation  of  the  des- 
pleasure  of  God  against  sin.  Against  sin  :  Not  as 
jeoparding  government  merely,  but  as  essentially 
evil  in  itself,  apart  from  its  actual  or  possible  develop- 
ments of  its  evil  tendency.  The  interest  of  govern- 
ment does  not  comprehend  the  entire  ground  of  the 
necessity  for  an  Atonement.  Does  not  the  efficacy  of 
the  Atonement  in  maintaining  government  depend  on 
its  sufficiency  to  meet  a  higher  demand,  namely,  that 
the  harmony  of  the  Divine  Perfections  be  conserved, 
and  particularly,  that  Justice,  as  an  attribute  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  essential  and  indefeasible,  irrespective 
of  external  relations  and  consequences,  be  satisfied  ? 
Let  there  be  then  an  adequate  revelation  of  God's 
displeasure  against  sin,  and  does  not  the  necessity  for 
punishment  disappear  ?  Why  is  punishment  necessary 
any  longer,  if  its  object  is  attained  ?  It  was  only  in 
order  to  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine  abhorrence 
of  sin,  that  punishment  was  appointed.  It  was  not 
appointed  simply  for  its  own  sake.  If  it  be  possible, 
then,  by  any  other  means  than  punishment,  to  reveal  in 
full  measure  and  power  the  Divine  Indignation  against 
sin  ;   in  othor  words,  if  there  be  any  means  by  which 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  45 

the  end  of  punishment  is  answered  as  perfectly  as  by 
punishment  itself,  and  if  these  means  are  provided,  is 
not  the  way  now  open,  so  far  as  the  honor  of  God  is 
concerned,  for  the  setting  aside  of  punishment  ?  May 
not  pardoning  mercy  here  intervene,  and  grace  abound 
in  all  its  offices  of  kindness  and  love,  without  opposi- 
tion from  any  one  of  the  Divine  perfections?  May 
not  God  now  act  as  it  becomes  Him  to  do,  even  while 
He  pours  upon  the  guilty  and  the  condemned,  if  only 
they  are  prepared  to  receive  it,  all  the  fulness  of  His 
benevolence?  In  the  language  of  inspiration,  may  we 
not  say  that  God  now  mzyhe  just  and  yet  the  justifier 
of  men?  Or  is  there  still  something  in  the  nature  of 
God  inconsistent  with  the  remission  of  punishment  ? 

9.  To  some  it  appears,  so  at  least  we  understand  them 
to  say,  that  two  things  in  the  Divine  Nature  are  still 
inconsistent;  two  essential  perfections  —  the  Divine 
Justice  and  the  Divine  Veracity. 

A  necessity  for  punishing  sin  lies,  it  has  been  said, 
in  the  nature  of  sin  itself,  as  deserving  of  punishment ; 
punishment  is  dueto  sin  ; — so  that  Justice  has  no  place 
if  punishment  be  set  aside.  But,  is  this  indeed  so  ? 
Punishment  is  due  to  sin,  if  due  and  desert  be  the 
same?  Sin  deserves  punishment;  and  if  Justice  is 
wanting  wherever  there  is  not  treatment  according 
to  desert,  forbearing  to  punish  is  being  unjust  ;  and 
there  is  truly  a  hindrance  to  the  remission  of  punish- 
ment still  remaining  in  the  Nature  of  God  :  He  would 
be  the  author  of  injustice  if  He  should  forbear  to  pun- 
ish. The  high  and  unchangeable  necessity  of  which  we 
have  again  and  again  spoken,  would  be  against  admit- 


46  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ting  any  substitute  for  the  punishment  of  sin.  No  atone- 
ment is  admissible,  not  even  though  the  atonement  be 
itself  punishment,  i.  e.,  the  punishment  of  another:  for 
the  argument  is,  that  there  must  be  punishment  where 
and  because  it  is  deserved ;  and  the  sinner's  desert  of 
punishment  is  one  of  the  things  which  are  eternal. 

10.  But  let  it  be  inquired  into,  whether  that  is  the 
true  idea  of  Justice  which  leads  to  this  conclusion? 
Is  it  so,  that  Justice  implies  and  necessitates  treatment 
according  to  desert,  so  that  where  there  is  sin  there 
must  be  punishment,  or  Justice  is  sacrificed?  The 
necessity  of  treatment  according  to  desert — is  this  em- 
braced in  the  nature  of  Justice  ?  Is  there,  then,  no 
such  thing  with  God,  as  the  remission  of  the  punish- 
ment of  sin,  or  veritable  forgiveness  ?  What  means 
the  preaching  of  the  remission  of  sins  among  all  na- 
tions in  the  name  of  Christ  ?* 

Besides,  how,  after  adopting  this  idea  of  Justice,  can 
we  give  it  a  place  among  the  Virtues  ?  If  Justice  be 
a  virtue,  a  good  thing,  it  can  never  be  opposed  to  any 
other  virtue,  or  oblige  us  to  anything  evil,  or  be  incon- 
sistent with  universal  goodness.  The  Virtues  are  ho- 
mogeneal,  sisters  in  the  same  family  ;  they  love  and 
embrace  one  another.  If  I  must  renounce  Virtue — be 
malignant  or  vindictive,  for  example,  in  order  to  re- 
tain what  I  choose  to  call  Justice,  either  Justice  is 
now  an  evil  thing,  or  I  have  abused  it,  by  giving  its 
name  to  that  which  is  evil.  That  cannot  be  in  its 
own  nature  good  which  requires  us  to  be,  or  to  do, 
evil.  But  suppose  a  man  to  be  brought  into  judgment 
*  Luke  xxiv.  47. 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  47 

and  condemned  as  a  criminal ;  and  that,  by  some 
means,  the  ends  to  be  answered  by  his  punishment  are 
already  secured  —  that  through  a  certain  arrange- 
ment or  provision,  no  injury  will  be  sustained,  and  no 
good  be  lost — no  ill  consequences  of  any  kind  will  fol- 
low, by  forbearing  to  punish  him — so  that  if  his  pun- 
ishment should  take  place  it  would  be  for  no  end  but 
simply  for  punishment's  sake  ;  and  now  suppose  again, 
that  something  naming  itself  Justice  should  forbid  his 
discharge  on  the  ground  that  it  would  keep  him  from 
his  desert,  would  this  something,  bear  whatever  name  it 
may,  be  anything  else  than  simple  malignity — would  it 
do  in  this  case  what  might  be  regarded  as  a  praiseworthy 
office,  a  thing  worthy  to  be  classed  with  the  exercises 
and  acts  of  that  holy  Love,  which  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  moral  law  ?  Surely  it  ought  not  to  be  called  Jus- 
tice. Is  the  quality  of  Justice  such  that  it  must  in- 
flict punishment,  in  all  cases  where  it  is  merited,  irre- 
spectively of  the  ends  of  punishment,  or  merely  be- 
cause punishment  has  been  incurred  and  is  deserved  ? 
The  ends  of  punishment  must  be  regarded  ;  they  are 
the  justification  and  defence  of  its  infliction — what 
Justice  points  to,  it  may  be  with  tears  of  pity,  as 
the  necessitating  cause  of  her  severity.  If  these 
can  be  secured  without  punishment,  it  is  not  Jus- 
tice, or  any  form  of  goodness,  but  arbitrary  cruelty, 
that  will  proceed,  in  these  circumstances,  to  inflict  a 
pang,  thongh  death  itself  be  deserved.  Justice  is  in 
this  case  satisfied — she  does  not  and  cannot  object  to 
the  remission  of  punishment :  Justice  is  no  enemy  to 
Love. 


48  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 

11.  It  may  be  well  to  note  the  office  and  place  of 
Justice  in  a  Virtuous  character.  It  is  essential,  but  it 
does  not  hold  the  highest  seat  among  the  attributes  of 
goodness.  The  supremacy  belongs  to  Love  —  the 
highest,  brightest  adornment  and  glory  of  every  good 
being.  Wisdom  is  in  the  service  of  Love  ;  so  is  Pow- 
er ;  so  is  Justice.  The  work  of  Justice  is  to  secure  to 
all  their  rights,  and  protect  the  interests  of  all.  This 
done,  Justice  is  content  ;  she  seeks  nothing  more.  If 
by  any  proceeding  of  Wisdom — any  means  whatever 
not  unlawful  in  themselves — the  interests  of  all  are 
placed  in  perfect  security,  nothing  would  be  more  un- 
just and  absurd  than  to  forbid,  in  the  name  of  Justice, 
the  manifestations  of  mercy. 

12.  Distinctions  have  been  made  in  Justice,  as  if  it 
were  of  different  kinds,  Distributive,  Commutative, 
and  Public ;  but  Justice  in  each  of  these  varieties  is  of 
the  same  nature  ;  in  neither  of  them  does  it  ever 
fulfil  the  part  of  simple  despotic  power,  or  renounce 
the  rule  of  Love  and  Goodness.  Distributive  Jus- 
tice deals  out  to  every  one  the  portion  of  good  "  which 
falleth  to  him  f  allots  to  each  one  his  claims,  suffers  no 
one  to  be  injured  ;  but  it  hinders  no  one  from  relin- 
quishing his  rights  at  the  suggestion  of  benevolence  or 
compassion,  much  less  does  it  oblige  any  one  to  be 
malignant  or  unforgiving.  Commutative  Justice — 
faithfulness  to  contracts,  honesty  between  man  and 
man — is  not  against  indulgence  to  an  unfortunate 
debtor,  nor  will  it  imprison  an  honest  debtor  who  has 
no  means  of  payment ;  such  a  measure  never  proceeds 
from  any  modification  of  Justice  ;  it  is  the  doing  of 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  49 

pure  malevolence.  Public  Justice  is  of  the  same  char- 
acter :  it  demands  the  punishment  of  crimes,  as  a 
means  of  securing  the  public  good,  but  it  is  not  against 
the  pardon  of  an  offender  whose  punishment  may  be 
remitted  with  prudence  ;  or,  as  the  case  sometimes  is, 
must  be  remitted,  unless  the  public  good  be  disregard- 
ed. To  return  to  our  former  statement,  it  is  never 
of  the  nature  or  spirit  of  Justice  to  give  pain  where 
no  ulterior  end  is  to  be  answered,  where  there  is 
no  object  to  be  reached  beyond  the  giving  of  pain, 
or  where  the  infliction  terminates  in  itself.  Such 
severity  proceeds  not  from  Justice,  but  gratuitous 
cruelty.     Justice,  then,  is  not  in  the  way. 

13.  The  other  supposed  obstacle  is  the  Divine  Ver- 
acity. Punishment,  we  are  reminded,  is  not  only  de- 
served, it  is  threatened  and  denounced.  It  is  expressed 
in  the  Law  itself,  as  the  consequence  of  transgression, 
and  is  not  the  Law  the  voice  of  truth  ?  Or  is  it  con- 
sistent with  the  principle  and  end  of  Divine  legislation, 
to  allow  the  idea  that  what  the  Law  names  as  the 
penalty  of  transgression,  may  be  incurred  and  yet  not 
endured?  If  this  be  so,  is  not  the  discouragement  of 
transgression,  the  majesty  of  the  Law — the  strength  of 
the  Divine  government,  less  than  it  might  be? 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is,  on  this  supposi- 
tion, less  of  one  kind  of  strength  than  in  the  opposite 
view  there  would  be.  If  the  Divine  government  pro- 
ceeded on  the  principle,  adopted,  it  is  said,  by  an 
ancient  tyrant,  that  no  remission  or  mitigation  of  the 
punishment  prescribed  in  the  law  would,  under  any 
circumstances,  be  admitted,  there  would,  indeed,  be  in 
3 


50  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 

it  more  of  that  terrible  strength  -which  is  dis- 
played in  the  stern  exercise  of  authority  ;  more,  in 
other  words,  of  despotic  power.  But  it  is  impos- 
sible that  God,  a  Being  of  perfect  and  unchange- 
able goodness,  should  administer  such  a  government. 
He  would  not  be  God  if  He  should  assume  the 
throne  of  an  arbitrary  despot.  Any  plan  of  govern- 
ment, not  consistent  with  the  supreme  rule  of 
Love  or  Goodness,  is  such  as  would  dishonor  the 
Most  High.  He  could  govern  on  no  such  plan.  If 
the  remission  of  punishment  may  be  made  compatible 
with  Justice,,  it  is  reproachful  to  Him  to  suppose  that 
He  would,  by  institutes  of  law  and  government,  have 
foreclosed  against  Himself  the  exercise  of  the  pardon- 
ing prerogative  ;  or  disabled  Himself  from  appearing 
in  His  administration  true  to  His  own  nature  as  the 
God  of  Love,  whose  goodness  is  His  glory. 

The  fact  is,  that  mere  legislation,  unless  it  be  itself  un- 
lawful, never  binds  the  hands  of  love,  or  forbids  mercy 
under  all  possible  or  supposeable  circumstances.  The 
veracity  of  a  lawgiver  is  not  pledged  by  the  simple  fact 
that  he  has  annexed  a  penalty  to  his  law,  for  the  exe- 
cution of  the  penalty  in  all  cases  of  transgression. 
Let  Justice  be  satisfied,  and  truth  itself  would  lose  the 
quality  of  a  virtue,  if  it  should  now  be  a  barrier  to 
the  free  exercises  of  benevolence.  Just  legislation, 
like  Justice  itself,  implies  no  necessity  for  punishment, 
except  as  the  ends  of  punishment  may  require.  The 
penalty  of  a  law  is  "not  to  be  taken  for  a  prediction, 
expressive  of  a  certain  event,  or  what  shall  be  ;  but  a 
oommination,  expressing  what  is  deserved,  or  most 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  51 

justly  may  be  ;  the  true  meaning  or  design  of  a  com- 
mination  being,  that  it  may  never  be  executed."*  They 
who  think  otherwise,  "  labor  under  a  delusion  as  to 
the  meaning  of  threatenings,  which,  though  they  affirm 
simply,  nevertheless  contain  in  them  a  tacit  condition, 
depending  on  the  result."t  Such  universally  is  the 
groundwork,  the  law,  of  all  true  legislation,  human 
and  Divine.  Where  law  under  the  Divine  govern- 
ment is  broken,  the  penalty  is  incurred,  the  transgres- 
sor is  amenable  to  pnnishment ;  but  God  has  not,  by 
the  mere  fact  of  having  given  the  law,  pronounced  a 
priori  against  the  exercise  of  mercy.  He  holds,  and 
from  the  first  meant  to  hold,  the  pardoning  preroga- 
tive in  His  hand.  Although,  according  to  the  letter 
of  the  law,  the  offender  is  exposed  to  death,  yet  God, 
except  as  justice  demands  satisfaction,  has  left  Himself 
free  to  do  with  him  as  He  pleases — to  have  mercy  on 
whom  He  will  have  mercy,  and  show  compassion  to 
whom  He  will  show  compassion. 

14.  These  Divine  perfections,  then,  are  not  in  the 
way.  So  far  as  Justice  and  Truth  are  concerned,  the 
way  is  open  and  clear.  Is  there  any  other  obstruc- 
tion? If  an  amende,  an  atonement,  may  be  supplied, 
is  there  anything  remaining,  in  or  out  of  the  Divine 
nature,  to  restrain  the  exercise  and  manifestation  of 
Divine  benevolence  to  mankind  ? 

According  to  the  evangelical  faith,  such  a  measure 
has  become  a  reality.  An  Atonement  has  been  made, 
by  means  of  which  all  the  perfections  of  God  harmon- 
ize and  interblend  their  glories  in  favor  of  men  ;  His 

*  Howe.  f  Calvin. 


52  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Justice,  Truth,  Holiness,  Wisdom,  commingling  with 
His  Mercy,  and  all  perfectly  consenting  together,  to 
set  before  us,  as  a  free  and  sovereign  gift,  eternal  life, 
with  all  its  variety  of  infinite  blessings.  It  is,  we  hold, 
a  historical  verity,  that  such  a  measure  has  come  into 
existence  and  operation  ;  has  taken  effect,  and  is  the 
groundwork  of  the  Divine  dispensations  of  grace  and 
goodness  which  so  abound  towards  our  sinful  world. 
We  regard  it  as  the  chief  of  all  the  ways  of  God — 
the  foundation  of  His  kingdom.  The  immediate  agent 
by  whom  it  was  accomplished,  was  He  to  whom  the 
Scripture  refers,  under  the  title,  "  the  Captain  of  our 
salvation."  The  means  were  included  in  those  suffer- 
ings of  His,  by  which,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  "He  was 
made  perfect."  In  these  sufferings  the  Atonement  is 
to  be  found.  The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  records  the 
history  of  the  transaction.  It  had  its  consummation 
in  the  agony  and  bloody  sweat  and  unparalleled  death 
of  Christ.  "  The  decease  which  He  accomplished  at 
Jerusalem,"  including  its  preliminary  and  attendant 
particulars,  was  an  atonement,  a  satisfaction  to  Divine 
Justice,  whereby  the  door  of  salvation  was  opened  to 
mankind.  This  is  the  grand  article  of  evangelical 
Theology. 

15.  The  doctrine  embraces  an  explanation,  showing 
why  it  was  that  this  death  had  the  efficacy  which  is 
ascribed  to  it;  or  what  gave  it  its  power  to  atone  for 
sin.  This  arose  in  part  from  the  nature  of  the  death 
or  sufferings  of  Christ ;  but  chiefly  from  the  character 
which  the  doctrine  ascribes  to  the  Sufferer.  In  this 
latter  respect,  the  doctrine,  without  controversy,  pre- 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  53 

sents   a  great  mystery.     It  gives    to  the  Sufferer  a 
sphere  of  antecedent  and  independent  existence,  out 
of  and  above  the  creation.     It  makes  Him  distinct 
from  God  *  and  at  the  same  time  co-equal  and  co- 
eternal  with  Him  ;  partaking  with  Him  the  essence 
and  inherent  glory  of  the  Godhead  :t  whereby  He  was 
competent  to  dispose  of  Himself  as  He  pleased,  and 
also  to  suffer  or  do  whatever  might  be  exacted  of  Him 
for  the  satisfaction  of  Justice,  without  being  Himself 
overcome  and  swallowed  up,  in  meeting  His  dread 
liability.     It  affirms  of  Him,  moreover,  that  He  sus- 
tained a  mysterious  relation  to  God,  that,  namely,  of 
an  Only  Begotten  Son,  who  dwelt  from  eternity  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father.     It  adds,  that  this  uncreated 
and  co-eternal  Companion  and  Son  of  God,  came  into 
the  world,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  clothed  in  humanity, 
yet  without  sin,  for  the  suffering  of  the  death  which 
awaited  Him.     Further,  it  represents  Him  as  bearing, 
by  the  imputation  of  Justice,  the  sin  of  mankind;  thus 
making  His  sufferings  vicarious,  while  it  gives  them  a 
severity  not  to  be  explained  or  justified  under  any 
other  idea  than  that  they  were  a  substitute  for  our 
punishment — a  compensation  for  its  remission.  Finally, 
it  declares  that  by  virtue  of  these  sufferings,  on  the 
part  of  one  who  possessed  the  Divine  nature  in  full 
equality  with  God,  an  Atonement  was  made — every 
end  answered  which  could  have  been  gained  by  in- 
flicting condign  punishment  on  mankind. 

16.  The  sufficiency  of  this  measure — its  power  to 
atone — no  one,  of  course,  could  perfectly  appreciate, 

*  "  The  Word  was  with  God."  f  "  The  Word  toas  God." 


54  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

besides  God  Himself.  None  else  could  comprehend 
the  amount  of  the  guilt  to  be  forgiven,  or  the  punish- 
ment which  it  incurred ;  nor  could  any  other  estimate 
justly  the  value  of  the  sufferings  which  were  endured 
by  Christ — such  sufferings  of  such  a  personage.  Their 
compensative  merit,  in  their  breadth  and  length,  their 
depth  and  height,  who  but  God  alone  could  compre- 
hend? But  they  must  have  been  an  adequate  com- 
pensation, having  been  appointed  and  accepted  as 
such  by  the  Divine  Justice :  and  now,  since  by  the 
will  of  God  they  have  been  published  and  set  forth  as 
sufficient  for  their  great  purpose,  that  it  has  this  suf- 
ficiency, or  is  a  full  amende  or  satisfaction  to  justice, 
cannot  but  assert  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  every  one 
to  whom  it  comes,  in  its  just  statement  and  influence. 
Being  an  atonement  in  fact,  according  to  the  judgment 
and  testimony  of  God,  it  must  be  one  in  their  experi- 
ence. Having  satisfied  the  ethical  nature  of  God,  it 
cannot  but  also  satisfy  conscience,  or  the  ethical  nature 
of  man.  The  facts  embraced  in  it, — that  the  sufferer 
was,  in  essential  dignity,  equal  with  God,  and  was 
also  His  Only  Begotten  Son,  cannot  but  be  regarded 
and  accepted  as  constituting  it  an  atonement.  Let  it 
be  admitted,  that  the  degraded  man,  whose  sweat  in 
the  garden  was  as  great  drops  of  blood  falling  down 
to  the  ground,  and  who  died  on  the  cross  in  the  man- 
ner described  in  the  gospel,  was  the  equal,  and  express 
image  of  God,  the  brightness  of  His  glory,  and  His 
own  Son ;  and  that  He  suffered  thus  "  to  purge  our 
sins,"  or  make  satisfaction  for  us  to  Justice ;  and 
though  no  finite  mind  can  conceive  the   magnitude 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  55 

of  the  punishment  due  to  mankind,  yet  sure  and  self- 
evident  it  is,  that  neither  this  punishment  nor  any- 
thing else,  could  have  been  of  greater  avail  as  expres- 
sive of  the  demerit  of  sin,  and  the  Divine  indignation 
towards  it.  Let  the  statement  be  apprehended  and 
received  by  the  human  conscience,  and  it  cannot  but 
give  that  conscience  peace  and  quietness,  as  to  the 
atoning  sufficiency  of  the  stupendous  Measure.* 

17.  But  is  the  statement  itself  credible  ?  Does  it 
not  involve  intrinsic  absurdity,  or  what  is  repugnant 
to  reason  and  natural  ueligion  ?  Is  not  the  possibility 
of  an  atonement  grounded  in  an  assertion  respecting 
the  character  of  Christ,  which  cannot  be  true?  There 
could  have  been  no  atonement,  it  is  said,  if  there  had 
not  been  One  in  eternity  with  God,  who  Himself  pos- 
sessed the  Divine  attributes:  in  other  words,  it  is 
taught,  that  Christ  was  strictly  a  Divine  Person. 
This  is  the  foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment. Is  it  consistent  with  the  greatest  and  first 
of  all  truths — the  Unity  of  God  ?  The  statement  is 
presented    with    a    concession — rather  with   a   bold 

*  It  is  sometimes  said,  that  the  identical  penalty  denounced 
against  transgressors  of  the  law  was  suffered  by  Christ ;  but 
that  what  Christ  suffered,  as  to  the  matter  of  it,  was  not  their 
penalty  is  certain :  Edwards  has  indicated  the  difference  in  the 
following  particulars  : 

1.  Christ  felt  not  the  gnawings  of  a  guilty  condemning  con- 
science. 

2.  He  felt  no  torment  from  the  reigning  of  inward  corruption 
and  lusts,  as  the  damned  do. 

3.  Christ  had  not  to  consider  that  God  hated  him. 

4.  Christ  did  not  suffer  despair,  as  the  wicked  do  in  hell. 
Edwards'  Works,  vol.  viii.,  p.  176.     Dwight's  edition. 


56  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

averment,  that  it  is  in  this  respect  a  mystery ; 
but  it  is  a  mystery  and  no  more ;  it  is  not  against 
any  dictate  of  reason,  or  contradictory  of  the  Divine 
Unity.  In  asserting  the  pre-existent  and  eternal 
Divinity  of  Christ,  it  docs  not  deny  the  one  and 
simple  essence  of  God,  but  only  implies  that  this  one 
essence  is  pluri-personal ;  or  that  in  the  essence  of  the 
Deity  there  are  more  Persons  or  subsistences  than 
one.  There  is  nothing  in  reason,  nothing  in  nature 
against  this  assertion.  It  relates  to  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  existence — a  great  mystery  indeed.  But  to 
men,  what  is  there  that  is  not  in  some  respect  mysteri- 
ous ;  and  if  all  nature  be  full  of  mystery,  why  should 
we  expect  to  find  out  by  searching,  the  mode  in  which 
the  great  Infinite  Himself  subsists  ?  The  mystery,  in 
this  case,  is  one  which,  it  is  contended,  the  Scriptures 
reveal  in  a  thousand  places  ;  which,  indeed,  including  its 
cognate  doctrines,  is  the  subject-matter  of  the  Bible. 
The  only  question  is,  Is  the  Bible  understood  and  in- 
terpreted aright? 


III. 

NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT-E 

To  this  brief  view  of  the  Atonement,  though  we 
have  endeavored  to  make  it  definite  and  distinctive, 
it  may  be  proper  to  subjoin  a  few  additional  observa- 
tions in  order  to  insure  it,  if  possible,  against  misap- 
prehension- 

1.  The  doctrine  as  now  set  forth,  does  not 
present  God  as  divided  against  Himself,  or  the 
Persons  of  the  Godhead  as  divided  and  contrary  to 
one  another ;  does  not  ascribe  compassion  to  the  Son 
and  deny  it  to  the  Father.  The  whole  Deity  is  made 
the  Author  and  Finisher  of  the  Atonement ;  the  will  and 
purpose  of  the  entire  Godhead  were  fulfilled  ;  it  was 
as  much  the  doing  of  the  Father  as  of  the  Son  ;  the 
Son,  while  He  gave  Himself,  was  also  the  Father's 
gift.  The  conception  of  opposite  feelings  and  inter- 
ests is  not  justified,  but  precluded. 

2.  There  is  no  ground  for  the  objection,  that  it 
makes  God  unjust  in  order  to  be  just, — unjust  in  His 
treatment  of  Christ,  in  order  to  be  just  in  showing 
favor  to  the  guilty.     Christ  does  not  become  a  sinner, 

3*  (57) 


58  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

because  by  imputation  He  bears  our  sins.  He  is  not 
regarded  as  deserving  the  treatment  He  receives. 
He  is  not  treated  otherwise  than  as  He  chooses  to  be. 
He  simply  foregoes  His  own  honors  and  rights  for  a 
time,  and  offers  Himself  to  suffer,  as  the  necessary 
means  of  our  salvation.  He  is  not  punished,  in  the 
ordinary  meaning  of  the  word,  as  implying  personal 
criminality.  No  injustice  is  done  Him,  unless  it  be 
in  the  nature  of  Justice  to  permit  no  sacrifice  to  be 
made,  no  interest  or  right  surrendered  for  the  benefit 
of  others ;  unless  Justice  be  the  enemy  of  self-denial 
and  disinterested  benevolence. 

3.  The  Atonement  does  not  imply  that  there  is  a 
vindictive  propensity  in  the  Divine  nature  ;  or  that 
God  needs  compensative  sufferings  for  His  own 
gratification,  or  any  motives  out  of  Himself  in  order 
to  be  inclined  to  the  exercise  of  compassion.  It  sup- 
poses the  Deity  to  be  incapable  of  acting  with  impro- 
priety, or  in  a  manner  which  does  not  become  Him, 
but  not  to  be  vindictive  or  slow  to  mercy.  The  Atone- 
ment assumes  as  a  necessity,  that  every  Divine  at- 
tribute harmonize  in  every  Divine  act  or  proceding  ; 
and  that  the  Divine  conduct  can  never  be  out  of  keeping 
with  itself,  or  inconsistent  with  the  majesty  and  honor 
of  God,  as  the  Lord  and  Maker  of  all.  But  this  is  not 
against  the  purest  and  highest  benevolence  ;  it  is  only 
against  a  benevolence  falsely  so  called,  which,  by  dis- 
regarding mode  in  manifesting  itself,  would  defeat  all 
the  ends  of  Infinite  goodness.  The  Atonement  is  but 
the  mercy  or  goodness  of  God,  using  a  proper  mode 
of  showing  itself  to  man.     Instead  of  being  against 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  59 

goodness,  it  is  an  instance  of  goodness,  comprehending 
every  other,  and  also  infinitely  surpassing  all  other 
forms  of  goodness  possible  or  conceivable.  It  is  the 
chief  means  by  which  God  demonstrates  His  goodness. 
There  are  representations  in  evangelical  writings 
and  discourses  which,  taken  to  the  letter,  and  apart 
from  their  connexions,  are  to  the  discredit  of  the 
Atonement,  as  implicating  the  Divine  character  in 
reproach.  The  Atonement  is  said  to  be  the  appease- 
ment of  the  Divine  vengeance  ;  the  wrath  of  God  is 
set  forth  as  spending  and  exhausting  itself  on  the  pure 
and  innocent  Saviour,  etc.  But  these  are  bold  and 
strong  expressions,  the  import  of  which,  as  consisting 
with  just  views  of  the  Divine  goodness,  is  commonly 
obvious  from  their  context  and  scope.  They  are  not 
without  warrant  from  Scripture.*  They  make  no 
bad  impression  on  candid  minds.  When  it  is  kept  in 
mind  that  the  Atonement  is  God's  own  work,  that 
Christ  was  His  own  Son,  in  whom  He  was  always 
well  pleased,  and  that  His  treatment  of  Christ  was,  in 
fact,  a  sacrifice  infinitely  expensive  to  Himself,  no 
room  is  left  for  understanding  the  language  in  question 
as  imputing  malignant  feelings  to  the  Deity.  It  serves 
but  to  show  the  malignant  nature  of  sin,  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  love  of  God  to  man.f 

*  Zech.  xiii.  7.     Is.  liii.  10.     Rom.  iii.  25. 

f  It  is  a  theological  question,  whether  Avenging  or  punitive 
justice  is  natural  to  God.  (An  justitia  vindicatrix  naturalis  sit 
Deo.)  If  Justice  be  taken  as  we  have  presented  it,  the  question 
must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative,  even  if  we  understand 
the  words,  "  natural  to  God,"  as  implying  that  God  would  lose 
His  true  nature  or  be  no  longer  God,  if  He  should  be  without 


60  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

4.  It  is  not  true  of  the  Atonement*  that  it  is  incom- 
prehensible or  obscure  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it 
answers  its  end.  Nothing  in  the  Atonement  is  more 
manifest  than  its  mode  of  influence,  or  how  it  is  con- 
nected with  forgiveness  and  salvation.  An  attempt 
to  state  the  doctrine,  which  does  not  show  this  con- 
nection, omits  the  radical  idea  of  the  Atonement.  The 
Atonement,  in  its  very  definition,  declares  how  it  opens 
the  door  for  the  manifestations  of  mercy.  What  is 
the  Atonement  but  a  satisfaction  to  Justice,  as  com- 
plete as  would  have  been  our  punishment,  in  order  to 
the  remission  of  punishment  without  dishonor  to  God, 
and  without  detriment  to  His  law  and  government? 
And  is  it  still  a  mystery  how  the  Atonement  is  con- 
nected with  our  salvation  ?  There  is  mystery  in  some 
things  pertaining  to  the  Atonement,  but  it  is  denying 
the  doctrine  to  say  that  we  know  nothing  of  the  mode 
of  its  influence. 

5.  The  Atonement  cannot  with  propriety  be  re- 
garded as  a  strictly  forensic  transaction.  Where  the 
terms  peculiar  to  courts  of  judicature  are  used  in 
speaking  of  it,  they  are  not  to  be  taken  literally; 
but,  as  human  language  must  needs  be  taken  very 

avenging  justice ;  that  is  to  say,  if  He  did  not  execute  punish- 
ment at  the  behest  of  love.  This  justice  is  indeed  natural  to 
God  ;  and  the  very  strong  authropopathic  language  referred  to 
in  the  text,  and  examples  of  the  Divine  severity  in  punishment, 
may  be  cited  in  proof  of  the  assertion.  But  if  we  take  Avenging 
Justice  in  a  sense  which  allows  a  disconnection  of  it  from  the 
rule  of  love,  and  suppose  its  inflictions  to  be  for  their  own  sake, 
merely,  and  ascribe  it  to  the  nature  of  God,  we  make  Him  an 
object  of  horror. 

*  As  Mr.  Coleridge,  Dr.  Paley  and  others  say. 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  61 

often  when  used  to  express  Divine  things,  with  more 
or  less  accommodation  to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  as 
by  its  own  evidence,  or  by  other  means,  understood. 
The  Atonement,  for  example,  justifies  no  one  in  the 
forensic  sense,  the  satisfaction  which  it  makes  not 
being  such  as  the  law  exacts  from  debtors  or  criminals. 
Forensic  justification  and  satisfaction  are  incompati- 
ble with  forgiveness :  he  who  is  justified  in  a  court 
cannot  be  pardoned  :  he  whose  debt  is  discharged 
cannot  be  forgiven :  but  the  Atonement  does  not  ren- 
der our  free  and  gratuitous  forgiveness  an  impossi- 
bility. Its  influence  is  precisely  the  reverse ;  namely, 
to  make  our  forgiveness  consistent  with  the  perfection 
and  glory  of  God  ;  or  if  we  may  so  speak,  to  obtain 
the  consent  of  Justice  and  all  the  other  Divine  at- 
tributes to  the  exercise  of  the  pardoning  power.  The 
Atonement  does  not  give  us  a  claim  on  God,  on  the 
ground  of  justice ;  it  does  not  impose  a  necessity  or 
obligation  on  God  to  forgive  us  ;  it  does  not  deprive 
Him  of  His  high  prerogative,  as  Judge  and  Lord  of 
all,  to  have  mercy  on  whom  He  will  have  mercy :  it 
does  not  transfer  this  prerogative  from  Himself  to 
Christ,  or  give  it  to  the  Son  exclusively  of  the  Father. 
We  have  mentioned  what  it  does.  It  brings  all  the 
perfections  of  God  into  harmony  with  the  free  mani- 
festations of  His  mercy ;  so  that  in  making  these 
manifestations  He  acts  as  "  becomes  Him  for  whom  are 
all  things  and  by  whom  are  all  things.'1 

6.  There  is  a  theory  of  the  Atonement  which  makes 
the  believer's  discharge  from  punishment  a  matter  of 
debt  to  him  from  God.     It  supposes  hira,  on  his  be- 


C2  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

coming  a  believer,  or  accepting  the  Atonement,  una- 
menable to  punishment  on  the  score  of  distributive 
justice,  square  with  the  law,  its  demands  against  him 
having  been  fully  met  by  his  Surety,  in  such  a  sense, 
that  to  punish  him  would  be  injustice  to  him,  a  double 
infliction  of  the  very  punishment  he  had  incurred.  It 
limits  grace  in  our  salvation  to  providing  the  Atone- 
ment ;  that  was  an  affair  of  grace  ;  all  after  that  was 
debt,  absolute  debt  to  the  believer.  It  expresses  it- 
self on  this  point  in  the  following  emphatic  language  : 
"The  Justice  of  God  that  required  man's  damnation, 
and  seemed  inconsistent  with  his  salvation,  now  does 
as  much  require  the  salvation  of  those  that  believe,  as 
ever  before  it  required  their  damnation.  Salvation  is 
an  absolute  debt  to  the  believer  from  God,  so  that  he 
may  in  justice  challenge  and  demand  it ;  not  upon  the 
account  of  what  he  himself  has  done,  but  upon  the 
account  of  what  his  Surety  has  done.  For  Christ  has 
satisfied  justice  fully  for  his  sin  :  so  that  it  is  a  thing 
that  may  be  challenged,  that  God  should  release  the 
believer  from  punishment ;  it  is  but  a  piece  of  justice 
that  the  creditor  should  release  the  debtor,  when  he 
has  fully  paid  the  debt."  Nor  is  this  the  full  extent 
of  his  demand  on  Divine  justice  :  "  The  believer  may 
demand  eternal  life,  because  it  has  been  merited  by 
Christ  by  a  merit  of  condignity,  so  that  it  is  contrived 
that  that  Justice  that  seemed  to  require  man's  destruc- 
tion, now  requires  his  salvation."*  Is  this  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible  ? 

*  This  citation  is  from  President  Edwards.     Professor  Park 
remarks  concerning  it,  (Theory  of  Atonement,)  that  it  was  written 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  63 

The  Bible  teaches  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness  of  sins. 
as  well  as  Atonement,  through  the  grace  of  God. 
Discriminating  (Eph.  iv.  33,)  between  Christ  and  God 
who,  though  the  same  in  one  respect  are  not  so  in 
another,  it  declares  that  God  forgives  us, — forbears  to 
treat  us  as  we  deserve,  not  pays  us  what  is,  in  justice, 
due  to  us  from  Him,— -for  Christ's  sake,  or  on  account 
of  the  Atonement  which  he  made.  It  is  impossible  to 
imagine  a  greater  contrast  than  that  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Bible  and  the  doctrine  of  this  theory,  in  regard  to 
the  claim  of  believers  for  their  salvation.  The  oppo- 
site of  the  latter  doctrine  it  could  not  have  asserted 
if  it  has  not  done  so.  Instead  of  making  the  Atone- 
ment inconsistent  with  forgiveness,  it  makes  for- 
giveness— free  forgiveness  by  the  grace  of  God, — the 
very  object  and  fruit  of  the  Atonement.  Instead  of 
limiting  grace  to  providing  the  Atonement,  it  makes  it 
the  very  function  of  that  stupendous  work  of  grace,  to 
remove  obstacles  to  the  farther  manifestations  of  grace. 
Instead  of  leaving  no  place  for  the  exercise  of 
grace  after  the  first  office  of  it — or  having  mercy  on 
whom  He  will  have  mercy,  a  prerogative  of  God  no 
longer,  it  assigns  to  the  Atonement  the  virtue  of 
enabling  Him,  if  we  may  speak  thus,  to  exercise  this 
prerogative  consistently  with  Justice.  Instead  of  em- 
powering believers  to  demand  salvation  as  a  debt  due 
to  them  from  Him,  it  summons  all  men  to  lift  up  prayer 
to  Him  for  pardon  and  daily  bread,  and  whatsoever  else 
of  good  they  would  receive  from  Him.     It  sets  forth 

by  Edwards  "  when  he  was  only  thirty  years  old,  and  was  point- 
edly condemned  by  Dr.  Smalley." 


64  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

God  *  in  absolute  independence  of  all  creatures  as  to 
claims  on  His  favor  ;  and  in  respect  to  sinners,  while 
it  announces  Him  as  appeased  or  propitiated  toward 
them,  by  virtue  of  the  Atonement,  it  still  leaves 
them  at  the  disposal  of  His  mercy,  which  on  their 
acceptance  of  the  Atonement,  He  is  more  than  will- 
ing for  Christ's  sake  to  extend  to  them;  but  to  the 
Atonement  itself,  infinitely  precious  as  it  is  in  His 
sight,  it  ascribes  no  influence  restrictive  of  freedom  in 
dispensing  mercy,  whether  in  making  sinners  "will- 
ing" in  the  day  of  his  power  to  accept  his  grace,  or  in 
realizing  to  them  its  fulness,  afterwards.  It  reveals 
God  as  a  Promiser,  it  is  true,  and  lays  the  utmost 
stress  on  the  divine  benignity  as  shown  in  the  freeness 
and  abundance  of  His  promises  ;  and  pleads  with  us 
by  the  argument  that  God  cannot  fail  to  keep  His 
word  to  the  uttermost  ;  it  allows  us — strange  to  think 
— to  hold  Him  to  His  word,  to  prove  Him,  to  test  His 
fidelity  ;  but  both  in  promising  and  keeping  His  pro- 
mise, it  is  not  justice  to  them  but  pure  love  that  ac- 
tuates Him,  and  such  love  as  only  the  infinitude  of  His 
own  nature  could  express  or  contain. 

7.  The  theory  of  the  Atonement,  therefore,  which 
gives  it  a  virtue  to  render  God  a  debtor  to  believers, 
is  not  the  true  theory.  There  is  no  such  virtue  in  the 
Atonement.  Creatures,  not  to  say  sinners,  cannot  be 
put  into  relations  toward  God,  which  would  make  a 
claim  on  Him,  in  justice,  either  proper  to  them  as  de- 
pendent on  Him,  not  only  for  what  of  good  or  goodness 
they  may  have,  but  even  for  existence  ;  or,  consistent 
*  Rom.  xi.  25. 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  65 

with  the  absolute  and  indefeasible  independence  of 
the  Deity  as  the  sole  Original  Fountain  of  created 
good  and  being.  There  is  no  possibility  of  adding  to 
the  merit  of  the  Atonement.  Among  the  works  of 
God,  there  is  nothing  so  worthy  of  praise  as  what  our 
Blessed  Lord  achieved,  when  uttering  on  the  Cross 
the  words,  It  is  finished,  he  bowed  his  head  in  the 
death  of  propitiation.  Nothing  has  received  such  ex- 
pressions of  complacency  from  God,  such  Alleluias 
from  the  hosts  of  heaven  :  Nothing  has  been,  nothing, 
in  all  ages  to  come,  is  to  be  so  rewarded.  But  for 
some  purposes,  nevertheless,  it  has  no  competence  ; 
and  one  of  these  is,  to  entitle  men  to  demand  their 
salvation  as  an  absolute  debt  to  them  from  God.  And 
it  is  not  lessening  its  value  to  deny  that  it  has  a  com- 
petency for  this  ;  nay,  it  would  take  away  all  value 
from  it  to  give  it  this  competency  :  it  would  then  be- 
come a  greater  power  for  evil,  than  it  now  is  for  good. 
If  it  might  in  some  sense  save  men,  it  might  dethrone 
and  undeify  God. 

8.  The  theory  mistakes  in  thinking  to  bring  the 
idea  of  condignity  into  the  rationale  of  the  Atonement. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  Creature-merit,  as  pertain- 
ing to  God.  It  is  alike  impossible  and  unnecessary. 
First,  it  is  impossible  :  Creatures  may  have  claims 
on  one  another.  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire  :  but  while  His  creatures  are  indebted  to  God 
for  every  thing,  He  can  owe  them  nothing.  "For 
who  hath  first  given  to  Him  and  it  shall  be  recom- 
pensed unto  him  again  ?"  Even  Christ,  when  He 
became   a   man    and    so   entered   into   the   relations 


66  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  the  finite,  could  not  in  these  relations  make 
God  a  debtor.  It  became  Him,  it  was  what  He 
owed  Himself  as  well  as  God,  to  fulfil  all  righteous- 
ness. It  was  otherwise  before  He  became  a  man,  or 
while  He  remained  in  the  sphere  of  pure  Godhead. 
But  when  He  became  human,  it  behooved  Him  to 
meet  the  conditions  of  that  nature.  He  bound 
Himself  thereby  to  absolute  obedience  to  God,  and 
did  no  more  than  it  became  Him  to  do.  His  put- 
ting Himself  into  human  relations,  which  He  was  infi- 
nitely above  all  obligations  to  do,  together  with  His 
subsequent  obedience  unto  death,  gave  His  work  an 
excellence  not  to  be  measured  by  finite  thought ;  but 
even  this  could  not  lay  God  under  the  obligations  of  a 
debtor  :  God  who  alone  could  appreciate  such  excel- 
lence, could  not  but  have  an  infinite  complacency  in 
it ;  but  He  was  not  bound  except  as  by  His  own  en- 
gagement He  bound  Himself,  to  save  mankind  for  the 
sake  of  it.  And  as  this  kind  of  merit  was  impossible, 
so,  as  we  have  said,  it  was  also  unnecessary.  God  did 
not  require  a  merit  of  condignity,  to  make  him  favor- 
able to  us  :  all  He  required  was,  that  the  obstacles  to 
the  exercise  of  His  love,  which  our  sin  put  in  its  way,  be 
removed  ;  after  that  His  love  needed  no  motive  but 
itself ;  it  had  motive  enough  in  its  nature :  love  seek- 
eth  not  her  own ;  she  is  moved  for  others'  good :  her 
nature  impels  her,  and  when  once  her  way  is  prepared, 
there  is  nothing  she  will  not  do  to  give  herself  a  com- 
plete development — to  multiply  favor,  until  it  would  be 
favor  no  longer  to  do  so. 

9.  We  have  thus  seen  that  there  cannot  and  need 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  67 

not  be  a  meriting  of  salvation  ;  lout  we  must  say  more 
than  this ;  the  desert  of  punishment  cannot  be  taken 
away.  The  Atonement  can  do  no  more  than  cover 
the  guilt  of  man,  that  is  to  say,  secure  him  against 
punishment ;  it  cannot  make  him  innocent.  The  wages 
of  sin  are  still  his  due,  his  only  due ;  they  need  not 
be  given  him,  but  he  deserves,  in  justice,  nothing  else. 
Upon  his  becoming  a  believer,  God  for  Christ's  sake 
remits  his  punishment,  adopts  hitn,  takes  him  into 
highest  favor,  treats  him,  as  if,  to  use  the  language 
of  Paul*  he  had  become  "  the  righteousness  of 
God ;"  but  in  all  this  he  is  still  undeserving,  and 
God  does  but  exercise  mercy ;  sovereign  and  bound- 
less mercy.  So  it  is,  and  it  is  impossible  it  should 
be  otherwise.  Ill-desert  once  contracted,  the  fact 
remains  forever,  and  its  nature  is  also  eternal. 

10.  The  theory,  therefore,  of  the  Atonement,  which 
makes  this,  the  greatest  of  the  works  of  infinite  wisdom 
and  love,  a  payment  of  a  debt,  putting  believers  in  a 
relation  to  law,f  by  which  they  require  a  right  to  salva- 
tion as  a  debt  due  to  them  from  God,  is  not  the  true  one. 
We  accept  no  theory  as  a  full  explanation  of  the  subject. 
We  are  persuaded  that  its  philosophy  is  completely 
comprehended  only  by  the  mind  of  the  Infinite.    Its  idea, 

*  2  Cor.,  v.  21. 

f  The  theory,  to  make  itself  complete,  applies  most  thoroughly 
its  idea  of  the  merit  of  condiguity.  Regarding  the  transgressor 
in  his  two-fold  relation  to  the  penalty  and  the  precept  of  the  law, 
it  divides  the  work  of  Christ,  so  as  to  accommodate  this  view,  into 
two  parts  ;  one  his  passive  righteousness  or  sufferings  and  death, 
to  meet  the  liability  to  the  penalty  ;  the  other,  his  active  right- 
eousness or  obedience  to  fulfil  the  precept.  By  the  first,  a  dis- 
charge from  punishment  is  merited,  by  the  second,  eternal  life. 


68  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

in  its  fullness,  exists  as  it  has  done  from  eternity  in 
that  mind ;  doubtless  it  has  never  entered,  and  will 
never  enter  into  any  other.  The  more  we  consider 
the  subject,  the  more  we  distrust  all  philosophizing  on 
it,  farther  than  to  exclude  inconsistency  with  known 
truth  ;  which  is  all  that  we  have  attempted.  The  full 
significance  of  the  facts  of  the  Atonement,  the  incar- 
nation, the  temptation,  the  agony  and  bloody  sweat, 
the  desertion  and  outcry  on  the  cross,  the  death  and 
burial  of  Christ, — can  neither  be  explained  nor  fully  com- 
prehended by  man  :  neither  can  the  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture concerning  these  facts.  The  language  employed 
by  the  Bible  in  communicating  this  great  lesson — "  The 
Lord  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all,"  "Awake,  O 
sword,  against  the  man  that  is  my  fellow,"  "He  was 
made  a  curse  for  us,"  "  He  who  knew  no  sin  was  made 
sin  for  us,"  "Through  the  eternal  Spirit  he  offered 
himself  without  spot  unto  God,"  "By  himself  he  purged 
our  sins,"  "  He  was  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,"  etc., 
can  never  be  adequately  rendered  into  logical  defini- 
tions or  the  statements  of  human  systems.  The  more 
profoundly  it  is  pondered,  the  more  the  mind  strives 
to  take  in  its  full  meaning,  the  more  is  its  wonder;  the 
more  its  amazement  such  as  that  expressed  by  the 
holy  apostle  in  his  exclamation,  "  0  the  depth !" — the 
more  cold  and  sterile  appear  all  human  theories  ;  the 
more  suitable  the  prayer  of  A  Kempis  :  "Let  all  teach- 
ers be  silent,  let  the  whole  creation  be  dumb  before 
Thee,  and  do  Thou  only  speak  to  my  soul." 

11.  The  extent  of  the  Atonement  is  determined  from 
its  nature.     How  far  indeed  it  is  to  avail  in  actually 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  69 

saving  men,  or  to  how  many  it  is  to  be  applied,  or  what 
portion  of  mankind  were,  as  its  fruit,  destined  to  salva- 
tion by  the  eternal  purpose  of  God,  cannot  be  understood 
from  the  Atonement  itself.  The  satisfaction  which  it 
renders  for  sin,  not  being  like  the  payment  of  a  debt,  in- 
consistent with,  but  only  the  necessary  condition  of, 
forgiveness,  the  Atonement  of  itself  involves  the  actual 
salvation  of  none.  Certain  indeed  it  was,  that  this 
Provision  of  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  would  not  be 
without  fruit  ;  but  to  render  the  Atonement  effectual, 
other  agencies  and  influences,  those  especially  of  the 
renewing  and  sanctifying  Spirit,  must  be  employed. 
In  respect  to  its  application  or  success,  the  Atonement 
will  be  coincident  in  extent  with  that  of  the  Divine 
purpose :  But  the  Atonement  proper,  the  Atonement  in 
itself,  or  its  efficacy  precisely  as  an  Atonement,  has  an 
amplitude  and  a  sufficiency  equal  to  the  value  of  the 
blood  of  Christ— the  infinite  worth  of  His  sufferings 
and  death.  The  overture  of  salvation  to  man  is 
limited  in  Scripture  to  no  age,  no  country,  no  class,  no 
number  ;  it  is  made,  not  to  as  many  as  God  secretly 
intends  to  make  willing  to  accept  it,  but  with  the 
same  earnestness  to  those  who  are  not  made  willing  ; 
nothing  limits  it  but  incorrigible  obstinacy  of  will  in 
those  by  whom  it  is  not  received.  The  boundlessness 
of  the  overture  has  an  adequate  ground  in  the  Atone- 
ment, whose  breadth  and  length  are  also  without 
bound. 

12.  Again,  the  Atonement  is  adapted  to  have  influ- 
ences and  effects  ulterior  to  the  salvation  of  men. 
By  the  discoveries  which  it  makes,  the  lessons  of  wis- 


70  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

dom,  justice,  purity,  power,  and  goodness  which  it  in- 
culcates, aud  the  manner  in  which  it  enforces  them,  it 
is  suited  to  be  the  teacher  of  the  world  and  the  ages 
— the  great  light,  the  central  sun  of  the  moral  crea- 
tion. The  impression  of  necessities  which  it  makes — 
the  necessity  that  the  ways  of  the  Most  High  be 
always  as  becometh  His  essential  majesty  and  glory  ; 
that  order  be  preserved  in  the  Divine  kingdom  ;  that 
the  displeasure  of  God  against  sin  be  revealed  ;  and 
the  necessity  of  punishment,  or  else  of  satisfac- 
tion, in  order  to  this  revelation  ;  and  the  other 
mysterious  necessities  which  are  shown  in  making 
satisfaction  ; — how  fitted  is  an  Expedient  of  this  import 
and  this  power  of  enforcement,  to  uphold  the  universe 
in  love  and  allegiance  to  Him,  by  whose  infinite  good- 
ness it  was  devised  and  accomplished  ?  That  it  is  not 
hidden  from  any  part  of  the  creation,  and  that  it  is, 
in  fact,  the  pillar  and  ground,  the  strength  and  se- 
curity of  the  moral  empire  of  the  Almighty,  the  bond 
of  eternal  union  and  harmony  among  angels  and  men, 
and  all  the  sons  of  light,  is  a  scriptural  asseveration 
concerning  it,  which  has  a  high  ground  of  probability 
in  itself. 

13.  The  distinguishing  traits  of  evangelical  piety 
appear  in  high  relief  in  the  light  which  shines  from 
the  Atonement.  It  is  this  doctrine  which  gives  evan- 
gelical piety  its  peculiarity.  That  piety  takes  from 
the  Atonement  its  entire  image  and  fashion,  its  every 
line  and  point,  as  the  clay  receives  whatever  is 
engraved  on  the  seal.  The  Atonement  in  evangeli- 
cal doctrine  is  a  fullness  that  iilleth  all  in  all.     It  is 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  n 

the  ground  of  all,  it  sustains  all,  it  permeates  all,  it 
gives  life  and  form  and  power  to  all.  It  has  the  same 
pre-eminence  and  importance  in  the  piety  which  cor- 
responds to  this  doctrine  as  its  just  counterpart.  The 
impress  of  the  Atonement  on  the  soul  and  the  charac- 
ter is  the  sum,  the  all  of  evangelical  piety.  That 
piety  is  nothing  else  than  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  co- 
existent and  co-eternal  with  God  ;  Deity  incarnate, 
suffering  for  the  sins  of  men,  the  Just  instead  of 
the  unjust  ; — this  doctrine  written  on  the  heart  by 
the  Spirit  of  the  Living  God,  and  exhibited  in  the 
life  and  conduct.  We  have  not  time  to  examine  this 
subjective  image  particularly — the  sense  of  mystery 
and  wonder,  the  humility,  the  annihilation  of  self, 
wisdom,  self- righteousness,  and  self-will,  the  filial 
dread  of  the  Divine  majesty,  the  contrition  and 
brokenness  of  heart,  the  sense  of  the  evil  of  sin,  the 
love  and  delight  in  Christ,  the  love  and  gratitude  to 
God,  the  peace,  the  joy,  the  hope,  the  praise,  and  other 
traits  comprised  in  it :  But  one  thing  we  cannot  for- 
bear to  observe:  that  there  is  in  the  piety  which 
answers  to  the  Atonement  as  the  image  to  the  seal, 
an  absolute,  overwhelming  conviction  of  the  final  and 
aggravated  condemnation  of  unbelievers.  That  the 
Atonement,  with  all  its  inherent  evidences  of  divinity, 
and  all  the  testimonial  signs  and  wonders,  and  other 
outward  proofs  by  which  it  is  confirmed,  should  not 
be  received  by  those  to  whom  it  is  offered  ;  that  this 
great  salvation  should  be  neglected,  this  only  means 
be  despised,  by  which  man  could  be  saved  ;  how  ap- 
palling the  thought  of  such   desperate  wickedness  1 


72  NATURE  OF  TIIE  ATONEMENT. 

How  shall  they  escape,  where  shall  they  appear,  who, 
in  the  language  of  Scripture,  "  tread  under  foot  the 
Son  of  God?" 

There  is  a  piety  whose  most  distinguishing  cha- 
racteristic seems  to  be  aversion  to  that  which  is  termed 
Evangelical.  It  has  many  recommendations.  It 
melts  with  tenderness,  it  bows  with  reverence,  it 
smiles  with  complacency,  it  rejoices  with  confidence 
and  hope,  at  its  own  religious  views.  It  often  dis- 
courses with  fluent  and  gentle,  and  tasteful  language, 
in  praise  of  itself;  and  it  certainly  has  many 
fruits  of  natural  goodness  and  self-culture  to  boast 
of.  But  so  inimical  is  it  to  the  majesty  and 
glory  of  God,  that  when  the  great  Device  is  men- 
tioned, by  which  alone  it  was  made  possible  to  keep 
the  Divine  honor  unsullied  and  immaculate,  while 
grace  is  shown  to  men,  then  this  piety  is  ready  to  cry 
out,  "  away  with  it,  away  with  it,"  as  the  Jews  ex- 
pressed their  scorn  for  the  Son  of  God,  when  Pilate 
brought  him  forth  to  them,  saying,  "behold  your 
king."  No  wickedness  moves  its  indignation  sooner 
or  more  profoundly  than  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment. If  that  doctrine  be  true,  of  what  avail  will  this 
piety  be,  "when  God  taketh  away  the  soul?" 


IV. 

CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT; 

AS    ASSERTED    IN    JOHN    I.   1-5. 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Ward  was  with  God, 
and  the  Word  was  God.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  tcith  God. 
All  things  icere  made  by  Him  ;  and  without  Him  teas  not  any  thing 
made  tlutt  was  made.  In  Him  was  life;  and  the  Life  teas  the  light 
of  men.  And  the  light  shinethin  darkness  ;  and  the  darknesscom- 
prehended  it  not." 

Our  familiarity  with  these  words,  unless  it  has  ren- 
dered us  unthinking,  cannot  have  diminished  our  in- 
terest in  them.  Francis  Junius,  of  whom,  at  his  death, 
it  was  remarked  by  Scaliger,  that  the  whole  world 
lamented  him  as  its  instructor*  was  recovered  from 
atheism  in  a  remarkable  manner,  by  this  passage  of 
Scripture.  Persuaded  by  his  father  to  read  the  New 
Testament,  "at  first  sight,"  he  says,  "I  fell  unexpect- 
edly on  that  august  chapter  of  St.  John  the  Evange- 
list, 'In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,'  etc.     I  read 

*  Junius,  and  Joseph  Scaliger  were  Professors  at  Leyden,  at  tlie 
same  time.  Scaliger  had  a  strong  aversion  for  Junius  in  his  life- 
time, because  the  latter  took  the  liberty  to  contradict  him  some- 
times in  matters  of  chronology,  and  opposed  his  having  the  pre- 
cedency over  all  the  other  professors.  But  at  the  death  of  Junius, 
the  resentment  of  Scaliger  gave  place  to  the  strongest  feelings  of 
respect  which  expressed  themselves  in  an  admirable  panegyric. 
4  (73) 


74  CHRIST  PREEXISTENT. 

part  of  the  chapter,  and  was  so  struck  with  what  I 
read,  that  I  instantly  perceived  the  divinity  of  the 
subject,  and  the  authority  and  majesty  of  the  Scrip- 
ture, to  surpass  greatly  all  human  eloquence.  I  shud- 
dered in  my  body  ;  my  mind  was  confounded  ;  and  I 
was  so  strongly  affected  all  that  day,  that  I  hardly 
knew  who  I  myself  was :  but  Thou,  Lord  my  God, 
didst  remember  me  in  thy  boundless  mercy,  and  receive 
a  lost  sheep  into  thy  flock." 

What  is  the  subject  of  these  wonderful  assertions? 
What  is  meant  by  the  appellation,  the  Word,  by 
which  that  subject  is  expressed? 

In  the  first  place,  does  it  denote  a  Being,  or  an  at- 
tribute ;  a  Person,  or  a  quality  ? 

That  a  real  Person  was  intended,  should  never,  we 
think,  have  been  questioned.  It  is  afiirmed  that  this 
Word  was  with  God,  was  God*  created  all  things, 
was  testified  unto  by  John,  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt 
with  men,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  There  is  an  irrev- 
erent freedom,  to  suspect  nothing  worse,  in  that  criti- 
cism which  ventures  to  inquire  whether  the  Evangelist 
meant  anything  more  than  an  attribute  or  quality, 
that  is,  no  real  subsistence,  by  what  he  denominates 
the  Word  in  this  sublime  passage.  He  does  not  more 
explicitly  affirm  the  Personal  existence  and  iudividu- 

*  "  On  this  supposition,"  namoly,  that  an  attribute  was  intend- 
ed, "  the  commencement  of  the  Gospel,  would  be  altogether  tauto- 
logical :  '  In  the  beginning  was  the  wisdom  of  God,  this  divine 
wisdom  was  with  God,  and  God  was  this  divine  wisdom.'  The 
Evangelist  would  have  had  no  occasion  to  establish  the  identity 
of  the  Logos  with  God,  if  he  had  intended  to  denote  by  Logos, 
nothing  else  than  a  Divine  attribute." — Tholuck, 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  75 

ality  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  subject  of  his  Gospel,  than 
the  perfect  Personality  of  the  Word,  the  subject  of  his 
great  declarations  in  this  place. 

Next,  Who  was  the  Individual  intended  by  this  ap- 
pellation ?  We  hesitate  not  to  say  that  the  evidence 
could  not  be  more  perfect  than  it  is,  that  the  self-same 
Person  is  here  spoken  of,  whom  the  Evangelist  after- 
wards presents  in  a  human  form,  and  under  a  human 
name,  as  the  subject  of  his  narrative.  The  Word  here 
intended  was  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  To  argue  on 
this  point,  implies,  in  our  view,  a  doubt  whether  the 
Evangelist  did  not  mean  to  practice  a  deception  on 
his  readers. 

But  why,  thirdly,  does  he  give  Christ  this  mysteri- 
ous appellation?  That  some  reason  for  this  existed, 
we  cannot  but  think.  None  of  the  names  given  to  our 
Lord,  were  given  arbitrarily.  They  were  all  chosen 
from  their  being  significative  of  Him,  in  either  his 
nature,  or  his  office.  What  is  there  in  the  present 
appellation  that  renders  it  an  appropriate  name  for 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? 

We  think  with  Clarke,  that  this  name  should  have 
been  left  untranslated.  The  original  Logos  is,  he 
justly  remarks,  as  proper  an  appellative  of  the  Saviour 
of  the  world,  as  either  of  the  terms  Jesus  or  Christ. 
And  as  it  would  be  improper  to  say,  the  Deliverer,  the 
Anointed,  instead  of  Jesus  Christ,  so  it  is  improper  to 
say,  the  Word,  instead  of  the  Logos. 

It  should  be  premised  also,  that  this  appellative  had 
been  used  before  the  Evangelist  wrote,  with  a  deeply 
significant  reference.    Philosophers  had  used  it  to 


76  CHRIST  PRE  EXISTENT. 

designate  the  creative  power,  to  which  in  opposition 
to  the  doctrine  of  chance,  they  ascribed  the  origin  of 
the  Universe."  It  was  in  use  too  among  the  Jewish 
teachers,  who  employed  it  to  discriminate  the  Deity 
revealed,  from  the  Deity  un-revealed — a  distinction 
which  they  seem  to  have  derived  from  certain  passages 
in  the  Old  Testament ;  assisted,  however,  as  Tholuck 
thinks,  by  the  ancient  oriental  theosophy.f  This  fact 
accounts  for  the  Evangelist's -using  the  term  as  if  it 
needed  no  explanation.^:     It  was  a  term  already  in 

*  "  The  Platonists  make  mention  of  the  Logos  in  this  way  : — 
/cm?'  ov  aei  ovra,  ra  yevofieva  cyevero — by  whom  eternally  existing 
all  things  were  made." — Clarke. 

•j-  The  passages  from  the  Old  Testament  cited  and  commented 
on  by  Tholuck  are  Exod.  xxxiii.  14.  xx.  23.  Is.  lxiii.  9.  Mai.  iii.  1. 
Ps.  xxxiii.  6.  Prov.  viii.  23  seq.  These  passages  he  shows,  we  think, 
contain  the  distinction  ;  but  he  supposes  it  improbable  that  the 
Jewish  teachers  would  have  discovered  it  in  them,  but  for  their  ac- 
quaintance with  the  oriental  systems  of  religion.  "  In  several  of 
these  systems,  the  idea  that  the  highest  Being  is  in  himself  in- 
comprehensible and  unapproachable,  is  found  developed  under 
various  modifications.  Man  is  represented  as  being  seized  with 
dizziness,  when  he  attempts  to  comprehend  this  idea  ;  and  in  gen- 
eral there  is  no  transit  from  this  Being  to  a  world  of  created  ex- 
istences. Consequently  it  becomes  necessary  for  God  to  generate 
in  Himself  a  certain  transition-point,  to  make  His  fulness  compre- 
hensible and  communicable  ;  and  this  He  did  by  producing  out  of 
Himself  from  eternity,  a  Being  like  unto  Himself  through  whom 
the  concealed  God  was  manifested." — The  reader  will  find  in 
Smith's  Scripture  Testimony  to  the  Messiah,  Vol.  I.  pp.  548—569, 
third  edition,  a  collection  of  the  principal  passages  in  the  extant 
writings  of  Philo,  concerning  the  subject  of  the  Logos.  Philo 
was  a  Jew  of  Alexandria,  of  a  sacerdotal  family,  who  is  supposed 
to  have  been  about  sixty  years  old  at  the  death  of  Christ.  His 
expressions  concerning  the  Logos,  have  excited  great  admiration. 

X  "  Since  it  can  be  actually  proved,  that  the  words  6  loyoc  tov 
Veov  at  that  time  expressed  a  definite  doctrinal  conception,  and 


CHRIST  PRE-EX1STENT.  TV 

familiar  use,  and  used,  unquestionably,  to  designate  a 
Person.  Mankind  had  been  taught  the  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  unity  ;  they  had  also  received  some  intima- 
tions of  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos.  Their  knowl- 
edge on  the  latter  subject,  however,  was  extremely 
confused.  The  Evangelist  has  delivered  concerning 
the  Logos  sublime  and  distinct  statements,  and  identi- 
fied the  very  Person  to  whom  that  name  appropriately 
belongs.  The  true  Logos,  of  whom  the  Old  Testa- 
ment had  given  some  discoveries  and  promises,  but  of 
whom  the  philosophers  and  rabbis  had  ignorantly 
discoursed,  was,  the  Evangelist  here  affirms,  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Lord  and  Saviour  of  the  world* 

such  an  one  as  is  similar  to  that  of  John,  it  is  altogether  certain 
that  John  employed  the  Word  in  that  determinate  doctrinal  sense 
which  was  prevalent  in  his  time."— Tholuck. 

*  Tholuck  rejects  the  idea  that  the  Evangelist  had  allusion  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  theosophists  on  this  subject.  "  Since  we  find 
in  the  first  place,  that  previously  in  the  Old  Testament,  intima- 
tions of  this  doctrine  of  the  Logos  can  he  pointed  out ;  and 
secondly,  that  the  apostle  Paul  teaches  the  same  doctrine  of  the 
Logos,  Col.  i.  15 ;  2  Cor.  iv.  4  ;  comp.  Heb.  i.  3,  although  he  bor- 
rowed his  mode  of  teaching  neither  from  the  Orientals  nor  from 
Philo,  but  from  Jewish  theologians  only ;  and  thirdly,  since  in 
Sir.  xliii.  26  (28),  the  creative  word  of  God,  and  in  the  book  of 
Wisdom  xviii.  15,  the  angel  which  presided  over  the  theocracy 
of  the  Old  Testament,  is  called  ?.6yoc ;  it  must  seem  to  be  most 
probable  that  John  did  not  occupy  himself  with  the  dogmas  of 
other  religions,  but  adhered  to  the  Jewish  doctrinal  theology  of 
his  time,  which  was  based  on  the  Old  Testament ;  and  that  in 
this  way  he  made  known  that  the  Revealer  of  God  pointed  out 
in  the  Old  Testament— He  who  had  directed  the  administration 
of  the  Old  Testament  theocracy,  had  actually  appeared  in  Christ. 
In  the  Epistles  also,  1  John  i.  1,  and  in  the  Revelation  xix.  13, 
John  calls  Christ  the  Logos,  and  thereby  intimates  the  impor- 
tant meaning  of  this  appellation."     As  the  Evangelist  wrote,  as 


78  CHRIST  PREEXI8TENT. 

The  propriety  of  giving  Christ  this  appellation  will, 
in  some  measure,  appear  by  considering  that  He  is, 
as  Philo  in  speaking  on  the  subject  of  the  Logos,  or 
Word,  admirably  says,  the  same  to  the  Supreme 
Intellect,  that  speech  is  to  the  human.  All 
who  believe  in  the  Scriptures  admit  that  Christ  is,  in 
some  sense,  the  Revealer  of  God ,  The  Scriptures  teach 
nothing  more  explicitly  than  that  the  Deity,  except 
as  revealed  by  Christ,  is  at  this  day  and  forever  will 
be  hidden  out  of  sight,  and  out  of  thought,  to  the 
entire  universe  of  men  and  angels.  That  God 
M  could  not  make  an  external  revelation  of  Himself 
in  the  world  until  He  had  become  revealed  within 
Himself,  that  is,  in  the  Son,"  is  affirmed  (how  intelli- 
gibly different  persons  will  differently  decide)  by  the 
excellent  expositor  Tholuck  ;  however  this  may  be, 
it  is  the  clear  teaching  of  Scripture,  that  in  point  of 
fact,  God,  by  Jesus  Christ,  has  exerted  all  the  power 
which  He  ever  has  exerted  out  of  Himself,  and  mado 
all  the  disclosures  of  Himself  to  creatures  which  ever 
have  been  made.  That  whatever  knowledge  men 
have  of  God  and  divine  things,  they  have  obtained 
through  Christ,  He  Himself  affirms  :  "  No  one  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time  ;  the  only  begotton  Son  who  is 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  declared  Him," 
It  is  related  in  the  Old  Testament  that  God  was  seen 
by  Adam,  Abraham,  Moses  and  the  prophets  ;  but 

he  was  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  was  competent  to  make 
known  that  the  Revealer  of  God  pointed  out  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment had  appeared  in  Christ,  without  being  indebted  to  either 
the  Jewish  theologians  of  his  time  or  the  eastern  theosophists. 


CHRIST  PREEXISTENT.  79 

they  saw  Him  only  in  the  Person  of  Christ,  who  also, 
by  His  Spirit,  gave  to  holy  men  of  old  "  the  lively 
oracles  "  of  inspired  truth.  Now,  as  speech  is  the 
medium  by  which  knowledge  is  communicated  among 
ourselves,  it  is  manifestly  proper  that  the  source  and 
channel  of  all  true  knowledge  should,  in  a  revelation 
given  to  man,  be  denominated  the  Logos — a  term 
which  signifies  speech,  or  instruction,  or  the  word 
spoken,  or,  as  in  our  translation,  the  Word.  There 
is,  doubtless,  more  of  fitness  in  this  appellation  to  the 
Person  to  whom  it  is  given  than  we  can  understand, 
but  it  is  sufficiently  obvious,  that  while  there  is  mys- 
tery, there  is  also  intelligible  and  striking  propriety 
in  naming  our  Lord  the  Logos. 

Having  seen  that  the  term,  in  its  present  use,  de- 
signates a  Person,  and  that  this  Person  was  Christ, 
let  us  proceed  to  consider  the  announcements  concern- 
ing him,  which  follow  : 

I.  The  first  is,  that  Christ  was  in  existence  at  the 
birth  of  the  creation.  The  phrase  "In  the  begin- 
ning"—  the  same  with  which  Moses  commences  the 
Bible,  refers  us  to  the  date  of  the  creation,  there 
being  nothing  to  limit  or  qualify  it.  The  assertion  is 
that  the  Logos  was  in  the  beginning ;  the  question 
may  be  asked,  in  the  beginning  of  what?  of  the 
world  as  it  now  is?  of  the  dealings  of  God  with 
man  ?  of  the  Christian  dispensation  ?  And  men  may 
give  their  own  answers.  The  Evangelist  is  silent. 
He  leaves  us  with  the  unqualified  affirmation  that  the 
Logos  was  in  the  beginning — an  affirmation  which,  if 
taken  in  the  absolute  sense,  transfers  us  to  the  instant 


80  CHRIST  PBE-EXI81ENT. 

when  creation  had  its  origin  and  time  with  it,  and 
presents  to  us  Christ  as  then  in  existence. 

The  assertion  here  is,  unless  it  should  be  understood 
with  some  restriction  of  which  the  Evangelist  gives 
no  hint,  that  Christ  was  in  existence  at  the  creation 
of  the' world  ;  that  when  there  were  no  depths — when 
there  were  no  fountains  abounding  with  water — be. 
fore  the  mountains  were  settled — before  the  hills — 
while  as  yet  God  had  not  made  the  earth,  nor  the 
fields,  nor  the  highest  part  of  the  dust  of  the  world — 
when  He  prepared  the  heavens — when  He  set  a  com- 
pass upon  the  face  of  the  depth — when  He  established 
the  clouds  above — when  he  strengthened  the  fountains 
of  the  deep — when  He  gave  to  the  sea  his  decree  that 
the  waters  should  not  pass  his  commandment — when 
He  appointed  the  foundations  of  the  earth* — then 
existed  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

There  are  those,  however,  who  restrict  the  words 
before  us,  so  as  to  make  them  mean,  in  the  he- 
ginning  of  the  preaching  oftJie  gospel.  It  is  not 
probable  that  many  readers  of  the  Evangelist  will 
adopt  this  gratuitous  exposition.  It  gives  a  trivial 
sense  to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  texts  of  in- 
spiration,   and    thus    subjects    itself   to    contempt.f 

*  In  this  use  of  Prov.  viii.  22-30,  to  express  what  we  believe 
to  be  asserted  by  the  Evangelist  as  an  historical  fact,  we  design 
not  to  cite  it  as  a  parallel  passage.  It  was,  however,  understood 
by  the  Jews  of  old,  and  the  Christian  church  from  the  beginning, 
of  a  Person,  the  substantial  wisdom  of  God ;  and  whatever  advances 
have  been  made  in  the  science  of  interpretation,  we  question  the 
soundness  of  that  criticism  which  takes  it  in  a  different  senso. 
See  Waterland's  Eight  Sermons,  pp.  216-218. 

f  Tholuck  calls  it  the  shallow  Socinian  explanation. 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  81 

This  assertion  stands  and  ever  will  stand,  without 
limitation  or  addition. 

But  taking  it  thus,  what  is  it  that  it  requires  us  to 
believe  concerning  Jesus  Christ  ?  That  He  is  a  Being, 
in  the  strictest  sense,  eternal !  If  He  was  in  existence 
when  the  world  and  time  commenced,  He  did  not  Him- 
self then  come  into  existence.  To  make  Him  one  of 
the  objects  that  then  came  into  existence,  to  say  that 
in  the  beginning  He  began  to  be,  or  that  among  those 
existences  which  came  forth  out  of  nothing  at  the 
command  of  the  Creator,  was  the  Logos,  is  to  contra- 
dict the  assertion  that  He  was  already  in  existence 
when  the  beginning  took  place.  Well  have  the 
ancient  Fathers  said  that  "  He  who  was  in  the  begin- 
ning comprehended  every  beginning  in  himself,"*  and 
that  "  as  to  the  Being  who  was  from  the  beginning, 
no  time  can  be  found  when  He  was  not."f  It  is 
therefore  the  proper  import  of  the  words  of  the 
Evangelist,  that  the  attribute  of  eternity,  in  the  most 
perfect  sense,  belongs  to  Christ ;  that  as  the  prophet 
Micah  affirms  of  Him.  His  emanations  are  from  the  be- 
ginning, from  the  days  of  eternity. 

II.  We  are  next  informed,  that  Christ  in  eternity 
was  the  Companion  of  God.  This  is  asserted  not  once 
only,  but  to  give  it  stronger  impression  it  is  repeated 
in  the  second  verse.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning 
with  God.  Eternal  accompanying  with  Eternal ! 
An  unsearchable  mystery,  but  yet  a  fact,  to  which 
the  highest  importance  is  attached  in  the  Scriptures. 
In  the  statements  of  Scripture,  concerning  both  crea- 

•  Augustine.  f  Theophylact. 

4* 


82  CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT. 

tion  and  redemption,  the  proposition  that  God  did 
not  dwell  alone  in  that  eternity  which  anteceded  both, 
that  the  Logos  was  with  Him  there,  is  always  im- 
plied and  is  often  prominent.  We  do  not  give  it  as 
the  assertion  of  the  Scriptures,  though  a  great  com- 
mentator has  made  it,  that  God  could  not,  except 
through  the  Son,  have  made  an  external  revelation  of 
Himself  in  the  world  ;  but  that  in  point  of  fact  He 
has  not  any  otherwise  revealed  Himself  in  the  world, 
that  before  creation  was  entered  upon,  there  was,  to 
speak  after  the  manner  of  men,  a  consultation  held, 
and  an  arrangement  agreed  upon,  between  God  and 
the  Logo?,  and  that  both  creation  and  redemption 
were  the  fruit  not  of  God's  agency  apart  from  that  of 
the  Logos,  but  of  the  concurrence  and  intercommu- 
nion of  both  ;  and  further,  that  but  for  the  part 
agreed  to  be  fulfilled,  and  in  due  time  actually  ful- 
filled, by  the  Logos,  there  never  would  have  been 
either  redemption  or  creation — is  not  only  a  state- 
ment, but  the  leading  and  fundamental  statement  of 
the  Bible.  That  book  does  not  speak  concerning  the 
origin  and  authorship  of  the  universe,  as  too  many 
do  who  profess  to  take  it  as  the  standard  of  their 
faith.  It  tells  of  a  creating  Deity,  but  it  also  tells  of 
one  inhabiting,  with  that  Deity,  the  eternity  which 
preceded  creation,  and  equally  concerned  in  accom- 
plishing that  glorious  work  :  "  The  Lord  possessed  me 
in  the  beginning  of  His  way,  before  His  work  of  old. 
I  wa3  set  up  from  everlasting,  from  the  beginning,  or 
ever  the  earth  was  :  Then  I  was  by  Him  as  one 
brought  up  with  Him  ;  and  I  was  daily  His  delight, 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  83 

rejoicing  always  before  Him— rejoicing  in  the  habit- 
able part  of  His  earth,  and  my  delights  were  with 
sons  of  men."*  The  Bible  teaches  that  the  universe 
was  created  for  Christ,  and  with  reference  to  a  revela- 
tion of  the  divine  glory  to  be  made  by  Christ,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  various  redemptive  and  govern- 
mental agencies  ;  and  that  redemption  itself,  except 
through  Christ,  was  not  achievable  without  a  sacrifice 
of  the  Divine  Justice.  From  which  clearly  stated 
premises  the  conclusion  is,  that  had  there  been  no 
Christ,  no  Logos,  in  eternity,  there  had  been  no  world, 
no  creation,  no  time.  We  are  accustomed  in  our  de- 
vout meditations  to  trace  our  salvation  to  a  covenant 
or  agreement  entered  into,  in  eternity,  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  and  to  admit  that  but  for  what 
the  Son  then  consented  to  do  for  us,  our  salvation 
would  have  been  unaccomplished  ;  but  the  Bible  leads 
us  to  take  a  wider  survey,  and  to  see  in  the  existence 
and  agency  of  the  Logos,  the  foundation  of  the  exist- 
ence and  perpetuity  of  all  creatures  and  worlds.  The 
doctrine  of  a  Personal  Logos,  the  Companion  of  God 
in  eternity,  enters  as  distinctly  into  the  biblical  sys- 
tem of  the  universe,  as  the  doctrine  of  a  Divine  exist- 
ence ;  and  the  great  Lord  Bacon  has  shown  himself 
as  sound  in  the  faith,  as  he  was  in  philosophy,  in  that 
memorable  confession  of  his,  from  which  we  give  the 

*  This  language  is  not  introduced  as  proof,  but  as  happily 
suited  to  express  the  sense  intended  to  he  conveyed  by  the 
author.  That  it  is,  however,  applicable  to  Christ  in  the  strictest 
sense,  was  the  universal  opinion  of  the  ancients  (themselves,  be 
it  remembered,  Orientals  and  therefore),  perhaps  the  best  quali- 
fied to  give  the  true  exposition. 


84  CHRIST  PRE-EX1STENT. 

following  extract :  "  That  neither  angels,  man,  nor 
world,  would  stand,  or  can  stand  one  moment  in  God's 
eye,  without  His  beholding  the  same  in  the  face  op 
a  Mediatoe  ;  and  therefore  that  before  Him  with 
whom  all  things  are  present,  the  Lamb  of  God  was 
slain  before  all  worlds  ;  but  that  out  of  His  eternal 
and  infinite  goodness  and  love,  purposing  to  become 
a  Creator,  and  to  communicate  to  His  creatures,  He 
ordained  in  His  eternal  counsel,  that  one  Person  of 
the  Godhead  should  be  united  to  one  nature  and  to 
one  particular  of  His  creatures  ;  so  that  in  the  Person 
of  the  Mediator  the  true  ladder  may  be  fixed  whereby 
God  may  descend  to  His  creatures,  and  His  creatures 
might. ascend  to  God  ;  so  that  God,  by  the  reconcile- 
ment* of  the  Mediator,  turning  His  countenance  toward 
His  creatures,  (though  not  in  equal  light  and  degree) 
made  way  unto  the  dispensation  of  His  most  holy  and 
sacred  will ;  whereby  some  of  His  creatures  might  stand 

*  Lord  Bacon,  on  the  basis  of  such  scriptures  as  Job  iv.  18 ; 
Job  xxv.  5  ;  Isa.  xxiv.  23,  and  of  bis  own  exquisite  sense  of  what 
is  fit  and  seemly,  held  that  the  reason  or  ground  of  necessity  for 
a  Mediator  was  the  ineffable  purity  and  majesty  of  God.  The 
writer  once  questioned  if  it  be  consistent  with  the  infinite  good- 
ness of  the  Deity  to  suppose  that  He  would  not  converse  with 
innocent  and  pure  creatures  except  through  a  mediator.  Reflec- 
tion has  convinced  him  that  Lord  Bacon  is  sustained  in  his  be- 
lief by  both  Scripture  and  reason.  It  may  be  the  highest  good- 
ness to  inspire  even  unfallen  creatures  with  a  sense  of  infinite 
majesty  and  greatness  ;  the  want  of  that  sense  might  be  the 
means  of  their  ruin  ;  and  in  order  to  produce  it  in  them,  Media- 
tion might  have  been  indispensable.  God  is  too  good  not  to 
express  delight  in  upright  creatures,  but  it  might  have  been 
unwise  and  contrary  to  goodness  to  be  regardless  of  the  mode  in 
which  His  delights  should  be  manifested. 


CUEIST  PEE  EXISTENT.  85 

and  keep  their  state  ;  others  might  possibly  fall  and  be 
restored  ;  and  others  might  fall  and  not  be  restored 
to  their  estate,  but  yet  remain  in  being  though  under 
wrath  and  corruption  ;  all  with  respect  to  the  Mediator, 
which  is  the  great  mystery  and  perfect  centre  of  all 
God's  ways  with  His  creatures,  and  to  which  all 
his  other  works  and  wonders,  do  but  serve  and  refer." 
That  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  which  makes  Him  the 
Companion,  in  eternity,  of  the  eternal  God,  was,  in  the 
belief  of  Lord  Bacon,  as  it  is  in  the  explicit  testimony 
of  Scripture,  the  foundation-stone  of  the  systems  of 
creation  and  redemption. 

III.  The  next  of  the  anouncements  before  us  is  that 
Christ,  the  Companion  of  God  in  eternity,  was  also  God 
Himself.  The  Logos  was  God.  This  is  not  a  more 
explicit  assertion  of  the  Deity  of  Christ,  than  the 
phrase  of  which  it  is  the  translation.  The  translation 
is  literally  exact.  This  no  criticism  questions  ;  but 
still  there  is  a  criticism  which  will  not  take  this  as  a 
proof-text  of  the  strict  Deity  of  Christ.  It  asserts  that 
he  was  God,  but  "  if  we  suppose  the  word  Logos  to 
mean  the  reason,  or  wisdom,  or  power  of  God,  what 
can  that  reason,  or  wisdom  or  power  be,  but  God  ?  "* 
The  evidence  however  that  the  word  Logos,  means 
not  an  attribute  but  a  Person,  is  as  we  have  before 

*  "  A  man's  word,  or  thought,  is  not  called  man  ;  nor  would 
the  word,  or  wisdom  of  God  be  called  God,  if  a  mere  attribute, 
or  operation  only  was  intended,  and  not  a  real  person." — Water- 
land.  That  a  prosopopoeia  cannot  be  here  admitted,  is  further 
evident  from  the  fact,  that  it  would,  as  Tholuck  has  remarked, 
render  the  expression  tautological :  "  The  tcisdom  of  God,  per- 
sonified, was  God  !  " 


86  CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT. 

remarked  such,  that  it  requires  a  degree  of  opiniona- 
tiveness  not  often  found,  capable  of  offering  it  resist- 
ance. Recourse  therefore  has  been  had  to  another 
supposition,  namely,  that  an  inferior  and  subordinate 
godship  is  here  ascribed  to  the  Logos.  He  is  said  to 
be  God,  but  not  the  Supreme  God.  If  we  admit  that 
He  was  in  some  sense  Divine,  or  was  God  by  office,  or 
delegated  power  and  prerogative,  we  do  not  reject  this 
testimony  concerning  Him.  Here  we  submit  four  short 
remarks.  1.  That  Christ  was  a  creature  in  some  sense 
divine,  or  that  He  was  God  by  office  or  prerogative;  and 
that  he  was  God  ;  are  not  identical  propositions. 
They  appear  at  least  to  have  infinitely  different  mean- 
ings, and  wonderful  must  be  the  critical  ingenuity,  that 
can  make  them  even  seem  convertible.  2.  If  the  incon- 
trovertible meaning  of  other  passages  of  Scripture 
would  be  set  aside  by  taking  the  words  before  us  in 
their  obvious  sense,  an  attempt  to  interpret  them  dif- 
ferently might  show  respect  for  the  sacred  oracles  ;  but 
there  is  a  great  mass  of  Scripture  testimony  demand- 
ing an  adherence  to  the  obvious  sense  in  this  place,  and 
not  a  sentence  nor  a  word  to  justify  a  departure  from 
it.  There  are  many  scriptures  which  assert  that  Christ 
was  a  man,  but  there  is  not  one  which  denies  his  Su- 
preme Divinity.  On  the  contrary,  it  might  be  shown, 
as  it  has  often  been,  with  the  greatest  strength  of  evi- 
dence, that  this  latter  point  is  asserted  in  Scripture  in 
the  most  unequivocal  manner.  3.  The  first  of  these 
affirmations  concerning  the  Logos,  namely,  that  "  He 
was  in  the  beginning,"  prepares  us  to  take  the  present 
one  in  its  obvious  import.     If  the  Logos  was  in  the 


CHRIST  PREEXISTENT.  87 

beginning,  that  is,  as  we  have  proved  the  phrase  to 
mean,  existed  before  all  created  things,  and,  of  course, 
was  distinct  from  them  and  uncreated,  there  should  be 
no  hesitation  in  admitting  his  Deity  in  the  absolute 
sense.  After  hearing  that  Christ  is  an  uncreated  or 
eternal  Being,  no  surprise  should  be  felt,  at  being  in- 
formed that  He  is  the  Supreme  God.  The  first  of  these 
propositions  includes  the  second.  If  any  thing  be  pe- 
culiar to  the  great  Supreme,  it  is  to  have  existed  from 
eternity,  or  to  be,  without  having  been  created  or  begun 
to  be.  4.  Since  the  words  refer  to  Christ  as  existing 
in  eternity,  while  as  yet  there  was  no  world,  and  no 
time,  to  make  them  declare  that  he  was  God  by  office, 
is  to  forget  that  office  implies  creatures,  over  whom  it 
is  exercised.  How  was  He  God  by  office  when  there 
were  no  objects  in  existence  to  hold  office  over  ? 

Zeal  for  the  Divine  Unity,  is  the  ostensible  motive 
for  so  explaining  this  and  other  scriptures  as  to  disal- 
low the  Supreme  Deity  of  our  Saviour.  The  proposi- 
tion that  there  was  a  Being  with  God,  who  was  yet 
Himself  Supreme  God,  implies,  it  is  alleged,  dualism 
in  the  Divine  Xature,  than  which  nothing  is  more  con- 
trary to  both  reason  and  Scripture.  The  implication, 
we  reply,  is  not  included.  God  may  be  one  in  essence, 
and  more  than  one  in  some  other  respect.  There  may 
be  a  distinction  in  the  mode  of  the  Divine  existence, 
and  yet  be  perfect  unity  in  the  Divine  essence.  This 
is  not  in  itself  a  contradiction,  and  if  Scripture  asserts 
it,  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  should  be  disproved,  be- 
fore it  is  rejected.  Further  ;  there  may  be  a  distinc- 
tion in  the  Godhead  of  such  a  kind,  as  to  admit  of  more 


88  CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT. 

than  one  impersonation  of  it,  consistently  with  its 
numerical  unity.  That  is  ;  the  one  God  may  be  one 
in  respect  to  Godhead,  and  yet  more  than  one  in  some 
other  respect :  and  the  difference  in  this  other  respect 
may  be  such  as  to  lay  the  basis  for  distinct  Personal 
attributes  and  offices.  This  is  not  an  inconsistency  in 
itself :  No  man  can  show  it  to  be  an  absurdity  :  No 
man  can  discard  it  as  contrary  to  reason  without  mak- 
ing himself  wiser  than  God,  provided  Scripture  has 
affirmed  it.  If  now  Scripture  has  affirmed  that  a  Per- 
son called  the  Logos,  had  union  and  happiness  in 
eternity  with  God,  and  that  this  Person  was  Himself 
God,  supreme  and  eternal,  why,  since  God  may  subsist 
in  several  Persons  and  yet  be  one  God,  should  we  hes- 
itate to  adopt  the  belief  that  He  does  so  subsist ; — a 
doctrine,  which,  while  it  makes  Scripture  intelligible 
and  consistent,  in  the  present  case,  is  demanded  in 
explicit  terms  by  a  thousand  other  texts,  and  has  ever 
been  a  fundamental  article  in  the  faith  of  the  Christian 
church  ?  It  is  not  said,  that  the  Logos  as  God,  was 
with  God  ;  but  that  the  Logos,  as  the  Logos,  was  with 
God.  When  it  can  be  shown  that  the  expressions 
the  Logos  as  the  Logos,  and  the  Logos  as  God,  mean  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing,  then  may  dualism  in  the  Divine 
Essence  be  inferred  from  that  interpretation  of  the 
phrase,  the  Logos  was  God,  which  gives  it  as  a  proof- 
text,  of  the  Supreme  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ. 

IV.  We  proceed  to  the  fourth  of  these  great  testi- 
monies. We  are  confirmed  in  the  belief,  that  the 
Evangelist  meant  to  assert  the  Divinity  of  Christ  in 
the  former  affirmation,  by  what  he  now  tells  us  of  his 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTEXT.  89 

agency.  He  makes  Him  the  author  of  the  universe — 
"All  things  were  made  by  Him  ;  and  without  Him  was 
not  any  tiling  made  that  was  made."  If  He  who  pro- 
duced all  things  from  nothing,  be  not  the  Supreme 
God,  the  idea  of  such  a  Being  has  not  yet  entered  into 
the  human  mind.  This  is  here  said  to  be  the  work  of 
Christ  in  the  most  emphatic  and  guarded  terms.  The 
universe  in  general,  is  first  made  His  workmanship, 
and  then  each  particular  existence  composing  it,  so  as 
to  preclude  one  exception. 

It  has  been  said,  that  the  creation  here  meant,  was 
the  new  spiritual  creation  ;  the  state  of  things  in  the 
moral  world,  as  arranged  under  the  New  Testament 
dispensation  ;  and  that  the  assertion  of  the  Evangelist 
is,  that  Christ  was  in  all  respects  the  author  of  that 
state  and  order  of  things.  But  not  only  is  this  said 
without  warrant  from  the  context,  but  it  would  not 
have  been  said,  had  the  preceding  testimonies  con- 
cerning Christ  been  taken  in  the  only  sense,  in  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  every  rule  of  just  interpretation  re- 
quires them  to  be  taken.  It  is  only  those  who  deny 
that  Christ  was,  at  the  creation,  and  therefore  before 
it,  and  Supreme  God,  who  take  the  words  before  us  as 
referring  to  the  spiritual  or  moral  world.  To  give 
them  such  a  reference  is  taking  such  liberty  with  them, 
as  no  one  would  take,  who  had  not  some  favorite  doc- 
trine or  interpretation  which  otherwise  must  be  sur- 
rendered. Besides,  this  assertion,  so  weak  in  itself,  so 
unsupported,  so  repudiated  by  the  context,  is  a  virtual 
denial  of  what  Scripture  elsewhere  affirms  with  the 
greatest  stress.     We  shall  cite  a  passage  to  this  pur- 


90  CHRIST  PREEXISTENT. 

port  from  Paul's  epistle  to  the  Colossians,  and  subjoin 
a  comment.     "  For  by  Him  (Christ)  were  all  things 
created,  that  are  in  heaven  and  that  are  on  earth,  vis- 
ible and  invisible,  whether  they  be  thrones  or  dominions, 
or  principalities,  or  powers,  all  things  were  created  by 
Him,  and  for  Him."     "Not  one  example,"  remarks 
Whitby  on  this  place,  "  can  be  shown  where  the  crea- 
tion of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  is  ever  used  in 
a  moral  sense,  or  concerning  any  other  than  the  natural 
creation.     Moreover,  in  the  first  place,  all  things  in 
earth,  and  things  visible,  must  comprise  things  without 
life,  the  inanimate  parts  of  nature,  concerning  which 
it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  a  moral  creation.     Secondly, 
under  things  in  heaven,  invisible,  etc.,  must  be  compre- 
hended the  whole  celestial  hierarchy  ;  but  good  angels 
cannot  require  a  spiritual  renovation,  and  Christ  came 
not  to  convert  fallen  angels,  but  to  destroy  their  em- 
pire."   They  truly  have  undertaken  a  difficult  task,  who 
are  endeavoring  to  show  that  the  Scriptures  do  not 
make  Christ  the  author  of  the  natural  creation.     It  is 
the  declaration  of  the  Scriptures,  that  God  created  all 
things,  but  it  is  also  their  declaration,  that  Christ  is 
the  Creator  ;  and  since  they  teach  that  Christ  was 
the  Supreme  God,  they  are  not  inconsistent  with  them- 
selves.   They  likewise  and  frequently  affirm,  that  God 
created  all  things,  by  Christ ;  but  if  while  Christ  pos- 
sesses the  Divine  Nature,  he  is  in  personality,  distinct 
from  the  Father,  this  expression  conveys  the  sublime 
and  most  interesting  truth,  so  clearly  taught  in  other 
texts,  that  the  Divine  Person,  in  whom  the  creative 
power  directly  exerted  itself  to  the  production  of  the 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  91 

universe  from  nothing,  was  the  same  that  assumed  our 
nature  and  dwelt  amongst  men  under  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ.  We  forbear  examining  into  the  grounds 
of  this  economy  of  the  creation,  or  searching  for  the 
reasons,  why  the  creative  power  did  not  exert  itself 
irrespectively  of  the  Personal  distinctions  in  the  God- 
head, or  why  the  Person  in  which  it  did  exert  itself 
was  the  Logos  or  Christ.  Tholuck  asserts  a  necessity 
in  this  case.  This  only  would  we  say  on  the  subject, 
that  if  it  were  only  through  the  mediation  of  the  Logos, 
that  the  Deity  could  converse  with  created  beings,  or 
that  such  beings,  as  Lord  Bacon  says,  could  stand  for 
a  moment  in  God's  eye,  it  seems  meet  and  reasonable, 
if  not  morally  necessary,  that  the  power  which  was  to 
give  creatures  existence,  should  exert  itself  in  the 
Person  of  the  Mediator. 

V.  The  fifth  of  these  declarations  is,  that  in  the  Logos 
was  Life.  We  are  not  to  understand  by  these  words, 
that  the  Logos  was  a  living  in  contradistinction  to  a 
lifeless  or  dead  being,  in  the  primary  meaning  of  these 
epithets.  To  say  this  after  having  affirmed  that  He 
was  the  Creator  of  all  things,  were  not  only  unneces- 
sary, but  were  to  sink  the  lofty  strain  of  the  discourse 
almost  bencatli  contempt.  That  he  was  not  a  dead 
being,  by  whom  the  vital  universe  was  made,  is  an  as- 
sertion which  in  the  connections  before  us,  no  one  can 
seriously  think  could  proceed  from  the  inspired  Evan- 
gelist. But  if  Life  here  is  not  to  be  taken  in  contra- 
distinction to  mere  death,  what  is  the  sense  in  which 
we  should  take  it  ?  It  is  not  difficult  to  answer  this 
question.     There  is  a  life,  which  is  if  we  may  so  speak, 


92  CHRIST  PREEXISTENT. 

the  life  of  all  life  in  rational  creatures.  It  is  not 
natural  life  merely,  whether  of  body  or  of  raind,  but 
the  higher  life  of  holiness,  or  holy  joy.  Life  in  Scrip- 
ture, often  means  moral  excellence,  holiness,  benevo- 
lence ;  and  often,  also,  happiness,  the  fruit  or  effect  of 
holiness.  These,  from  their  relation  to  each  other, 
are  considered  as  one,  holiness  implying  happiness  as 
its  result,  and  happiness  implying  holiness  as  its  cause. 
We  need  not  therefore  in  the  present  instance  dis- 
criminate :  life  is  holiness ;  life  is  happiness :  no  ac- 
count need  be  taken  of  the  difference.  Spiritual  life, 
including  both  true  holiness  and  true  happiness,  things 
dwelling  in  one  another  as  heat  in  the  sun-beams,  is 
the  life  Avhich  is  here  said  to  have  been  in  the  Logos. 
This  life,  which  filled  the  rational  creation,  while  in 
its  first  estate,  and  we  may  hope,  fills  it  still  with  slight 
exception,  had  its  fountain  in  Christ,  as  the  revealing- 
God.  All  rational  creatures  awoke  into  existence  in 
possession  of  it,  which  along  with  existence  itself,  they 
derived  from  Christ.  He  infused  into  them  the  holy 
vitality  which  dwelt  in  himself  and  filled  them  witli 
his  fulness.  That  fathomless  love  which  appeared  so 
wondrously  in  redemption,  had  been  before  manifested 
as  perfectly  as  the  nature  of  things  would  admit,  in 
the  work  of  creation,  when  the  morning  stars  sang  to- 
gether and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy. 

VI.  This  history  of  our  Saviour  in  his  pre-existent 
state,  informs  us  further  that  the  Life,  the  spiritual 
life  of  whose  nature  and  fountain  we  have  just  spoken, 
— was  the  Light  of  men.  The  sense  of  this  statement 
cannot  be  misapprehended.     We  are  in  no  danger  of 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  93 

positive  mistake,  even  if  we  do  not  fully  and  distinctly 
take  the  meaning,  so  as  to  be  able  to  express  it  in  a 
perfect  definition.  Man,  when  he  first  awoke  from 
non-existence,  found  himself  in  a  world  furnished 
magnificently  for  his  use,  and  gloriously  illuminated 
by  those  larger  and  lesser  lights,  which  still  pour  their 
splendors  from  the  firmament.  Those  material  beams, 
however,  which  gilded  the  face  of  nature,  and  trans- 
ported the  eye  with  the  views  of  sublimity  and  beauty 
which  it  presented,  are  not  the  light  of  men.  Nor  is 
this  the  light  of  the  understanding,  consisting  in  ideas 
or  the  images  of  things  in  the  mind  and  the  results  of 
combining  and  comparing  them  ; — a  light  which  may 
or  may  not  be  associated  with  moral  depravity,  and, 
if  associated  with  it,  is  called  darkness  in  Scripture, 
nay,  the  blackness  of  darkness.  The  true  light  of  men 
is,  as  Tholuck  has  happily  expressed  it,  an  ethico-relig- 
ious  knowledge,  based  on  an  inivard  communion  with 
God,  and  comprehending  the  theoretical  and  practical  at 
the  same  time;  a  knowledge  obtained  not  by  mere  in- 
tellection, but  by  the  blended  exercise  of  the  under- 
standing and  the  heart,  when  in  agreement  with  the 
understanding  and  heart  of  God ;  the  knowledge 
which  fills  the  upright  mind,  by  its  inwardly  appre- 
hending and  loving  the  Divine  excellence.  This  being 
the  end  of  all  material  and  intellectual  light  is  properly 
the  light  of  men ;  the  glory  and  joy  of  our  rational 
nature.  The  source  of  this  light,  which  shone  in  man 
at  his  creation,  purely  and  perfectly,  was  in  that  life 
in  the  Logos,  of  which  we  have  been  speaking.  It 
was  the  communication  of  that  Divine  life  from  the 


94  CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT. 

Logos  to  man,  that  made  him  the  subject  of  this  light. 
Even  as  in  the  new-creation  by  grace,  it  is  by  the  soul's 
partaking  again  of  this  same  life  in  Christ,  that  it 
acquires  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
glory.*  Human  teaching  may  impart  the  light  of 
external  knowledge,  the  knowledge  contained  in  defi- 
nitions ;  but  that  sort  of  knowledge,  in  which  the  true 
light  of  men  consists,  is  not  obtained,  until  a  spiritual 
union  takes  place  between  God  and  the  soul ;  it  is  by 
virtue  of  that  union,  that  the  soul  obtains  those  views 
of  divine  things  with  which  it  is  transported  on  the 
day  when  it  is  born  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

VII.  This  recital  concerning  Christ  in  his  pre-exis- 
tent  state,  closes  with  these  words  :  "And  the  light 
shineth  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  comprehended  it 
not."  No  note  need  be  taken  of  the  variation  of  the 
tense,  since,  as  it  has  been  justly  remarked,  nothing  is 
a  more  distinguishing  peculiarity  of  the  style  of  this 
Evangelist,  than  the  confounding  of  the  tenses.  The 
scope  of  the  context  manifestly  requires,  that  the  past 
time  be  understood  in  both  clauses  of  the  sentence. 
The  declaration  relates  to  the  Logos  in  his  pre-existent 
state,  and  to  man  as  apostate  and  depraved. 

Darkness  here  means  human  nature  amid  the  ruins 
of  the  fall.  Darkness  strictly,  expresses  a  state,  but 
the  abstract  is  here  taken  for  the  concrete.  Man  in 
the  darkness  of  his  apostate  condition  is  spoken  of,  as 
if  he  were  darkness  itself.  This  mode  of  speaking 
concerning  depraved  man  is  not  peculiar  to  this  writer. 
Paul  declares  that  Christians  before  their  conversion 

*  John  viii.  12. 


CHRIST  PRE-EXISTENT.  95 

were  darkness  :  "  Ye  were  sometime  darkness,  but  now 
are  ye  light  in  the  Lord."  The  present  testimony 
then,  referring  to  man  as  alienated  from  the  Divine  life, 
and  therefore  involved  in  spiritual  darkness,  affirms 
the  renewed  love  of  the  Logos  to  him,  in  these  circum- 
stance of  guilt  and  misery.  When  by  transgression  he 
made  himself  darkness,  He  who  was  the  light  of  his 
soul  in  innocence,  did  not  forsake  him,  but  continued  to 
shine  within  him,  to  the  end  that  he  might  recover 
himself  by  repentance.  Through  the  period  before 
the  flood  and  through  all  subsequent  time,  man,  a  few 
individuals  excepted,  was  darkness  ;  but  the  Logos 
continued  to  shine  in  the  world.  He  shed  some  rays, 
even  as  he  now  does*  among  the  most  ignorant  of 
mankind,  enlightening  in  some  degree  every  one  who 
came  into  the  world  ;  but  they  were  shed  generally  in 
vain  ;  the  darkness  which  they  penetrated  did  not 
comprehend  them.  The  Logos  was  in  the  world,  but 
the  world  knew  Him  not ;  He  came  to  his  own,  but 
His  own  received  Him  not.  They  preferred  the  crea- 
ture to  the  Creator,  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  the  visi- 
ble to  the  invisible,  through  the  madness  of  sin.  The 
great  mass  of  all  nations  made  no  improvement  of  the 
light  which  shone  amongst  them  and  within  them,  but 
as  Paul  teaches,  suppressed  or  perverted  it,  through 
their  unrighteousness.  Even  at  this  day  the  light  is 
shining  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  comprehendeth 
it  not.     Is  the  reader  acquainted  with  no  individual 

*  Some  have  thought  that  the  constant  shining  of  the  Divine 
light,  was  intended  to  be  expressed  by  the  use  of  the  present 
tense,  in  the  first  clause  ;  but  we  rest  not  our  remark  on  this  crit- 
icism, for  a  reason  before  given. 


06  CHRIST  PRE-EXI8TENT. 

in  -whom  this  Scripture  is  verified  ?  Does  not  his  own 
experience  teach  him,  what  the  language  before  us 
means  ?  It  is  true  in  respect  to  himself,  that  the  light 
has  been  shining  in  darkness,  showing  him  his  immor- 
tality, his  relations  to  God,  his  sin,  his  danger,  his 
misery,  the  way  of  peace,  and  motives  to  effort,  of  in- 
finite power.  Is  it  not  also  true,  that  in  this  case,  the 
darkness  has  not  comprehended  the  light ;  that  he  has 
seen  as  if  he  had  seen  not,  and  perceived  as  if  he  had 
understood  not ;  that  his  immortality  he  has  practically 
disbelieved,  his  relations  to  God  violated  ;  his  sin  he 
has  loved  ;  his  danger  disregarded  ;  his  misery  not 
lamented,  the  way  of  peace  not  pursued,  motives  vast 
as  eternity  resisted  ?  Where  is  the  man  who  can  se- 
riously reflect  on  his  own  moral  history,  and  not  know 
from  an  interpreter  within  his  own  breast,  what  is 
meant  by  the  light  shining  in  darkness,  and  the  dark- 
ness not  comprehending  it? 

Our  reflections  on  these  sublime  testimonies  con- 
cerning Christ  pre-existent,  have  deepened  our  im- 
pressions of  the  truth  and  importance  of  the  three  fol- 
lowing statements. 

First,  That  this  world's  opposition  to  the  Christian 
religion  shows  it  to  be  a  world  in  rebellion  against  its 
own  Maker.  The  Author  of  the  Christian  faith  was 
the  Author  of  the  universe.  The  Founder  ol  the  Chris- 
tian church  was  He  who  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
earth  and  meted  out  the  heavens  with  a  span.  The 
institutions,  laws,  documents,  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
rest  on  the  authority  of  Him  who  upholds  the  pillars 
of  creation.     To  oppose  this  religion  is  to  lift  the  hand 


CHRIST  PRE-EX1STENT.  97 

of  treason  against  the  throne  of  the  Almighty.  The 
world  have  opposed  and  still  do  oppose  it.  "  The- 
ophilus  of  Antioch  compared  the  little  Christian  church 
in  the  wide  domains  of  heathenism,  to  verdant  islands 
in  a  great  raging  ocean.  Thus  too  within  the  pale  of 
Christianity  has  the  congregation  of  the  regenerate 
always  stood  in  relation  to  the  children  of  the  world."* 
The  testimony  of  this  fact  concerning  the  moral  state 
of  mankind,  renders  a  denial  of  their  deep  depravity, 
their  "desperate  wickedness,"  the  highest  possible 
proof  of  it. 

Secondly,  That  it  is  not  Christianity,  that  assigns 
simple  God-head  or  Deity  as  the  cause  of  the  creation. 
It  is  coming  short  of  the  teaching  of  Christianity  on 
this  subject,  only  to  say,  the  universe  is  the  workman- 
ship of  God.  It  is  rejecting  Christianity,  in  this  great 
article,  to  exclude  Christ's  handiwork  from  the  causal 
influence  of  the  creation.  Christianity  tells  us  of  a 
Logos  as  well  as  of  a  Deity,  and  makes  the  Deity  in 
the  Logos  the  author  of  the  world's  existence.  They 
who  assert  that  God  apart  from  the  Logos,  or  Deity 
out  of  Christ,  was  the  maker  of  the  universe,  contra- 
dict the  Scriptures  in  the  most  explicit  manner.  In- 
timations, that  the  creative  power  dwelt  in  a  Divine 
essence  which  was  pluri-personal,  are  contained  in  the 
narrative  of  the  creation  given  by  Moses,f  and  through- 

*  Tholuck. 

f  "After  the  closest  attention  that  I  can  give,"  says  Dr.  Smith, 
Scrip.  Test.  Vol.  I.  p.  483,  "  the  impression  on  my  mind  is  favor- 
able to  the  opinion,  that  this  peculiarity  of  idiom, — (the  use  of 
plural  nouns,  especially  EloMm  in  application  to  the  Divine  Be- 
ing) originated  in  a  design  to  intimate  a  plurality  in  the  nature 
5 


98  CHRIST  PREEXISTENT. 

out  the  Old  Testament ;  but  in  the  New  Testament, 
the  subject  is  set  forth  in  the  clearest  light,  and  the  ex- 
press assertion  made  that  the  Creator  was  Deity  in 
the  Logos,  or  God  in  Christ. 

The  doctrine  that  simple  Deity  was  the  Creator  of 
the  universe,  ought  never  to  be  published,  and  if  pub- 
lished never  received  as  a  doctrine  of  Christianity; 
it  may  be  naturalism,  but  it  is  not  the  Gospel.  Nay, 
if  it  pretend  to  be  Christianity,  it  is  another  and  a  rival 
Gospel,  which  no  true  friend  of  Christ  can  do  other- 
wise than  disavow  and  condemn. 

Thirdly,  That  the  greatest  of  all  wonders  is  the 
Love  of  Christ  for  man.  That  our  Maker  should  for 
our  sakes  make  Himself  a  man — that  He  who  dwelt  in 
eternity  with  God, — glorious  in  all  the  perfections  of 
the  Deity  Himself,  and  happy  in  the  complacency  of 
the  other  Divine  Persons, — should,  to  recover  us  from 
sin  and  deserved  death,  take  upon  Him  the  form  of  a 
servant,  and  be  made  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh  ; 
and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  should  humble 
Himself  and  become  obedient  unto  death,  even  the 
death  of  the  cross — 

"  Oil,  for  this  love  let  rocks  and  hills 
Their  lasting  silence  break, 
And  all  harmonious  human  tongues 
The  Saviour's  praises  speak." 

of  the  one  God  ;  and  that  thus  in  connection  with  other  circum- 
stances calculated  to  suggest  the  same  conception,  it  was  intend- 
ed to  excite  and  prepare  the  minds  of  men  for  the  more  full  dec- 
laration of  this  unsearchable  mystery,  which  should  in  proper 
time  be  granted." — Any  exposition  of  Gen.  i.  2G,  or  of  the  narra- 
tive of  the  creative  process  given  in  that  ohapter  which  does  not 
admit  this  intimation,  should,  we  think,  be  rejected  as  unsatis- 
factory. 


V. 

CHRIST  PREACHING  TO  THE  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON. 


"On  Kai  Xpiarug  arret,!;  Trepl  dpapTi&v  eira'he,  diicatog 
vTrsp  adittbiv,  iva  r/ftag  irpwoaydyq  tg3  Sew,  ^avarufoeig 
fisv  oapKL,  ^uorroufhelg  6£  nvev^ari,  '  kv  u>  Kai  rolg  ev 
(pvXan%i  nvevpiaai  iropevhelg  efcrjpvgev,  r  dTtei^rjaaac  izore, 
ore  aTregedexETO  77  rov  "heov  naKpohvfila  ev  rjfiepaig  Nwe, 
KaraoKevaC,o\ievr\g  ki(3(otov,  elg  i)v  oXiyai  tovt'  ecnv  oktoj 
ipv%al  dieou>%T]oav  61  v6arog.  b  Kai  fyiag  avTirvnov  vvv 
ato^ei  (3dnTioi.ia,  ov  oapK.bg  diro'heoig  pvnov,  dXXd  awei- 
6fjO£(s)g  dya^rjg  enepu)T7]fxa  eig  Seov,  61  dvaardoecdg  '1-qaov 
Xpiarov.—l  Pet.  iii.   18-21. 

It  is  the  design  of  Peter  in  the  preceding  context 
to  fortify  Christians  against  discouragement  from  the 
sufferings  to  which  they  were  exposed  for  the  sake  of 
the  Gospel.  To  this  end  he  tells  them  that  it  is  better, 
if  the  will  of  God  be  so,  that  they  suffer  for  well-do- 
ing than  for  evil-doing  ;  assuming  that  all  suffering  for 
adhering  to  the  Gospel  is  suffering  for  well  doing. 
He  cites,  in  confirmation  of  this,  the  example  of  Christ, 
who  suffered  as  a  well-doer,  the  Just  for  the  unjust, 
that  he  might  bring  us  to  God  ;  the  highest  instance 
that  ever  was  or  will  be,  both  of  well-doing  and  of  suf- 
fering on  account  of  it.  What  the  apostle  would  have 
them  particularly  remember  was,  that  the  sufferer  in 

(99) 


100  CHRIST  PRE  AGEING   TO  TEE 

this  instance  found  ultimately  no  disadvantage  from 
the  unparalleled  injuries  which  lie  endured.  Though 
He  suffered  to  the  greatest  extremity,  even  to  His  be- 
ing put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  the  ignominious  death  of 
the  cross,  yet  He  was  quickened  by  the  Spirit,  by  which 
He  went  and  preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison,  etc. 

"  This  place  is  somewhat  obscure  in  itself,  but  as  it 
usually  happens,  made  more  so  by  the  various  fancies 
and  contests  of  interpreters,  seeming  or  pretending  to 
clear  it."  The  fact,  however,  that  efforts  to  explain  it 
have  been  unsuccessful,  will  not  and  should  not  pre- 
clude continued  attempts.  It  is  relied  upon  to  support 
unsound  and  dangerous  doctrines,  and  it  should,  if 
possible,  be  shown  by  just  exposition,  that  it  lends 
them  no  countenance.  Its  affirmation  concerning 
Christ's  preaching  to  the  spirits  in  prison,  is  interpret- 
ed to  mean  that  He  went  after  His  death  to  the  abode 
of  departed  sinners,  "  the  proper  hell,"  and  "  that  as  He 
revealed  here  on  earth  the  will  of  God  unto  the  sons 
of  men,  and  propounded  Himself  as  the  object  of  their 
faith,  to  the  end  that  whosoever  believed  in  Him  should 
never  die  ;  so  after  His  death  he  showed  Himself  unto 
the  souls  departed,  that  whosoever  of  them  would  yet 
accept  of  Him  should  pass  from  death  to  life."  This 
and  other  dogmas  contrary  to  the  catholic  faith,  ap- 
peal to  this  scripture  as  their  warrant,  and  so  long  as 
they  do  so,  the  friends  of  truth,  certainly,  should  not 
cease  looking  for  the  key  to  its  true  interpretation. 
Whether  there  be  any  conclusive  force  in  the  following 
remarks,  is  with  deference  submitted  to  the  decision  of 
the  reader. 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  101 

We  would  first  ascertain  the  meaning  of  the  phrase 
rendered  in  our  version,  "  quickened  by  the  Spirit." 
So  far  as  we  know,  what  we  take  to  be  the  sense  of 
the  original  words,  has  never  been  given.  If  this  can 
be  established,  we  think  a  new  ray  of  light  will  be 
thrown  on  the  passage. 

Our  translation,  it  is  admitted,  is  not  the  only  one 
the  original  will  bear.  Nay,  much  as  we  desire  to 
honor  the  received  English  version,  we  are  constrained 
to  say  that  it  has  in  this  instance  given  a  reading 
which  the  original  will  not  bear.  The  true  reading  is 
not,  quickened  by  the  Spirit,  but  quickened  in  the 
the  Spirit.  So  it  is  given  in  Wickliffe,  by  Tyndale,  by 
Cranmer,  and  in  the  versions  of  Geneva  and  Rheims, 
and  so,  but  for  certain  theological  antipathies,  it  would 
probably  have  been  given  by  our  translators.  Both 
the  prepositions,  in  the  clause,  "  put  to  death  in  the 
flesh  but  quickened  by  the  Spirit."  have  been  supplied. 
The  words  flesh  and  Spirit  stand  in  the  original  with- 
out any  preposition  whatever,  and  it  is  obvious  from 
their  antithesis,  that  if  the  word  "  spirit "  denote  the 
active  cause  by  which  Christ  was  restored  to  life,  the 
word  "  flesh  "  must  equally  denote  the  active  cause  by 
which  he  was  put  to  death  ;  which,  therefore,  must 
have  been  the  flesh  of  his  own  body,  an  interpretation 
too  manifestly  absurd  to  be  admitted.* 

The  important  phrase  before  us  must  have  one  of  the 
five  following  significations  :  1.  That  Christ  after 
His  death,  was  invigorated  as  to  His  human  soul  as 
distinguished  from  His  bod  y  ;  that,  though  as  to  His 

*  Horseley. 


102  CHRIST  PREACHING  TO  THE 

body  He  was  dead,  He  was  more  vital  than  before  as 
to  His  soul.  We  cannot  adopt  this  as  the  true  sense, 
though  the  thing  affirmed  may  have  been  true,  for  a 
reason  which  will  hereafter  be  given.  It  may  seem 
to  be  required,  at  the  first  view,  by  the  law  of  antithe- 
sis, but  besides  that  it  is  a  feeble  sense,  it  does  not,  as 
we  shall  see,  fall  in  with  the  scope  of  the  context. 

2.  That  Christ,  after  death,  was  made  more  vital  as 
to  His  Deity,  as  distinguished  from  His  human  nature. 
This  sense  must  be  rejected,  as  being  inconsistent  with 
the  essential  immutability  of  the  Godhead. 

3.  That  Christ  suffered  death,  indeed,  in  His  body, 
but  was  resuscitated  or  quickened  again  into  bodily 
life,  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  This,  however  true,  is  not 
what  the  words  were  intended  to  express  :  (1.)  Be- 
cause, as  we  have  shown,  the  original  cannot  be  justly 
rendered  so  as  to  give  this  sense  ;  it  must  be  translated 
quickened,  not  by,  but  in  the  Spirit.  (2.)  Because 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  was  not  more  the  act  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  than  that  of  the  Father  ;  nay,  than  Christ's 
own  act.  It  is  ascribed  to  the  Father  in  Eph.  i.  20. 
It  is  ascribed  to  Christ  Himself  in  John  ii.  19,  and 
John  x.  18.  If  it  is  anywhere  ascribed  to  the  Holy 
Ghost,  it  is  not  as  His  act  exclusively  or  peculiarly  ; 
and  no  reason  appears  from  either  the  text  or  context 
for  introducing  the  Holy  Ghost  here  as  the  agent  in 
raising  the  body  of  Christ :  nay,  (3.)  the  raising  of  His 
body  cannot  have  been  referred  to  in  this  quickening, 
for  the  very  reason  that  the  context  on  that  supposi- 
tion cannot  be  explained.  Indeed,  all  context,  i.e.  con- 
nection between  the  parts  of  the  passage,  is  destroyed 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  103 

by  it.  For  what  connection  is  there  between  Christ's 
being  raised  from  the  dead,  and  preaching  to  the  ante- 
diluvians ? 

4.  That  Christ,  after  being  put  to  death  in  His 
body,  quickened  Himself  into  bodily  life  by  His 
own  Divine  power.  This  cannot  be  what  is  intended, 
because,  to  mention  no  other  reason,  the  original  can- 
not be  so  translaetd  as  to  admit  the  preposition  by. 

5.  The  only  remaining  sense  of  the  phrase  is,  that 
Christ,  after  His  death,  was  quickened  in  reference  to 
His  great  work,  the  salvation  of  mankind  ; — quickened 
as  to  that  efficacious  agency,  by  which  this  work  was 
to  be  carried  forward ; — an  agency  by  which  Christ 
made  Himself  to  be  felt  among  men  in  His  power  to 
save  ;  an  agency  which  diffused  new  and  mighty  life 
through  the  church,  and,  by  means  of  His  church,  thus 
vitalized,  throughout  the  world.  This  agency  was 
specifically  that  of  the-  Holy  Spirit, — according  to  the 
representations  of  Scripture,  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 
So  he  is  called  in  Romans  viii.  10,  and  elsewhere,  (1,) 
because,  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  reference  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  our  redemption,  is  possessed  by  Christ 
above  measure  ;  John  iii.  34,  Acts  xxxviii.  Is.  xlii.  1  ; 
and,  (2,)  because,  for  the  same  purpose,  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  given  or  sent  by  Christ  ;  John  i.  33,  xv.  26,  Luke 
xxxiv.  49.  The  distinguishing  mark  of  our  Lord,  as  the 
Messiah,  was,  that  he  baptized  with  the  Holy  Spirit. 
So  He  baptized  His  disciples  on  the  day  of  Pentecost ; 
and  so,  by  their  instrumentality,  He  baptized  great 
multitudes  throughout  the  world,  or  in  the  language 
of  the  prophet,  "  sprinkled  many  nations,''  Is.  Iii.  15. 

5* 


104  CHRIST  P BEACHING  TO    THE 

Thus,  though  Christ  suffered  unto  death  in  the  flesh, 
in  accomplishing  the  redemption  of  man,  yet,  relatively 
to  that  work,  He  was  quickened  in  the  Spirit,  became 
efficaciously  vital  and  life-giving,  in  the  influences  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  which  were  thenceforward  so  abundantly 
bestowed.  In  the  Spirit,  thus  understood,  he  was 
"  straitened  "  before  His  death,  according  to  His  own 
complaint,  Luke  xii.  50 ;  after  His  death,  He  was 
"  quickened  ;  "  life  flowed  from  Him  filling  His  church 
with  vitality,  and  the  world  too  became  conscious  of  His 
life-giving  energy,  agreeably  to  His  own  forcible 
illustration,  John  xii.  32,  "  And  if  I  be  lifted  up  from 
the  earth,  I  will  draw  all  men  upon  me." 

We  propound  this,  then,  as  the  true  sense  of  the  ex- 
pression, as  being,  1,  the  worthiest  and  greatest  sense 
and  on  that  account  preferable,  other  tilings  being 
equal ;  2,  accordant  with  a  manifest  and  wonderful 
fact,  which  was  then  filling  the  world  with  excitement, 
namely,  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  in  His  divinely 
vivifying  influence  ;  and,  3,  coincident  with  the  scope, 
of  the  place,  in  connection  with  which  it  stands,  as 
follows  :  No  damage  comes  from  well-doing  :  Christ 
suffered  extremely  on  that  account,  and  the  result  is 
known.  To  redeem  man,  He  was  put  to  death  in  the 
flesh  ;  but  His  deatli  was  the  means  of  life  to  His  cause. 
Before  He  died,  to  use  His  own  simile,  He  was  like  an 
implanted  grain  which  abideth  alone  ;  after  His  death, 
He  was  like  a  corn  of  wheat,  which  having  yielded  its 
life  in  the  midst  of  a  fruitful  soil,  is  now  producing  a 
hundred-fold  increase.  To  vary  the  form  of  speaking, 
He  was  straitened  before  He  suffered  :  He  was  quick- 


SPIRITS  IN  PBISON.  105 

ened  afterwards.  Filled  Himself  with  the  Spirit  above 
measure,  He  poured  it  out  from  on  high,  baptized  His 
church  with  it,  and  diffused,  through  His  church,  a 
heavenly  life  among  the  nations. 

Such  is  our  understanding  of  this  very  important 
phrase  "  quickened  in  the  Spirit."  Irrespective  of  the 
light  which  the  remaining  part  of  the  text  receives 
from  this  interpretation,  it  commends  itself,  we  think, 
as  the  only  one  the  place  will  bear.  It  will  appear, 
however,  as  having  new  claims  to  our  adoption,  when 
it  is  seen  how  it  elucidates  the  following  context.  We 
proceed  with  our  exposition. 

The  apostle  having  mentioned  Christ's  becoming 
thus  quickened  in  consequence  of  His  death,  as  to  the 
life-giving  power  of  the  Spirit,  goes  on  to  speak  of  His 
having  exerted  Himself,  in  an  office  of  the  Spirit, 
among  those  who  perished  by  Noah's  flood.  He 
expresses  this  in  the  following  language:  "By 
which  he  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits  in 
prison,  which  sometime  were  disobedient,  when 
once  the  long-suffering  of  God  waited  in  the  days 
of  Noah."  But  why  does  he  mention  this  ancient 
fact  in  this  connection  ?  What  has  Christ's  ministry 
to  the  antediluvians,  in  the  person  of  Noah,  to  do  with 
the  subject  which  the  apostle  has  in  hand,  namely,  His 
being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  but  quickened  in  the 
Spirit?  This,  at  the  first  view,  seems  exceedingly 
abrupt,  and  some  persons,  probably,  have  been  inclined 
by  this  appearance  of  dislocation  and  irrelevance  to 
question,  if  the  apostle  be  in  fact  speaking  of  what 
we  have  said,  namely,  the  preaching  by  means  of  Noah 


106  CHRIST  PREACHING   TO  THE 

to  the  disobedient  men  of  this  day.  The  dogma,  as  we 
have  before  mentioned,  has  been  advanced,  that  Christ, 
after  His  death,  went  to  the  place  where  the  antedilu- 
vians where  now  confined,  for  the  purpose  of  preach- 
ing to  them ;  and  in  accordance  with  it  this  text  has 
been  explained ;  and  the  explanation  has,  it  may  be 
said,  this  at  least  to  recommend  it,  namely,  that  it  makes 
the  apostle  less  disjointed  and  incoherent  in  his  dis- 
course. For  it  is  what  one  would  be  naturally  enough 
led  to  inquire  about,  after  being  told  that  Christ,  when 
lying  dead  in  the  grave,  was,  in  spirit,  more  vital  and 
energetic  than  before.  Where  was  Christ's  disembodied 
spirit,  and  how  was  it  exerting  its  invigorated  powers 
during  the  three  days  and  nights  which  intervened 
between  His  crucifixion  and  His  resurrection?  An  in- 
quiry which  it  has  been  supposed  the  apostle,  in  the 
words  following,  proceeds  to  resolve.     Is  this  so  ? 

Was  the  soul  of  Christ  in  fact  thus  employed,  while 
His  body  was  in  Joseph's  tomb  ?  If  there  is  any  tes- 
timony in  Scripture  in  favor  of  this,  it  is  in  the  present 
text.  There  is  no  parallel  place,  no  hint,  no  trace  of 
evidence,  direct  or  indirect,  besides.  Presumption 
certainly  is  against  it:  for  why  should  these  ante- 
diluvians, above  all  mankind  who  have  departed  in 
disobedience,  be  distinguished  by  such  a  privilege  as 
it  is  said  they  had  ?  It  is  moreover  fatal  to  this  expo- 
sition, that  it  gives  a  feeble  sense  to  the  great  expres- 
sion, '"  quickened  in  the  Spirit."  The  spirit,  according 
to  this  interpretation,  means  Christ's  human  soul ;  but 
to  say  that  Christ  did  not  die  as  to  His  soul  when  His 
body  was  dead,  but  was  rather  more  vigorous,  were 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  107 

but  to  make  a  common  place  remark,  and  to  say  what 
is  doubtless  true  of  every  one  who  dies,  as  well  as  of 
our  Lord.  "We  shall  see  yet  further  reason  for  not 
adopting  this  exposition. 

But,  after  all,  is  the  alleged  objection  against  the 
commonly  received  meaning  of  Christ's  "  preaching, 
etc.,"  true?  Is  it  impossible  to  trace  a  connection  be- 
tween this  interpretation  and  Christ's  being  quickened 
in  the  Spirit  ?  A  connection  there  doubtless  is,  if  the 
interpretation  be  the  true  one.  Confessedly  it  is  not 
apparent  at  the  first  glance,  but  may  not  a  connection 
be  discovered  by  close  attention  to  the  drift  of  the 
apostle's  discourse,  and  by  comparing  scripture  with 
scripture?  We  humbly  hope  we  have  made  this 
discovery. 

The  connection  in  question  is  a  connection  or  link 
of  union  in  the  apostle's  thought,  between  Christ's  be- 
ing quickened  in  the  Spirit  after  His  death  in  the  body, 
and  His  preaching  through  Noah  to  the  Antediluvians, 
then  disembodied  spirits  in  prison.  Can  no  reason  be 
conceived  of,  why  the  apostle  should  mention  these 
things  as  he  has  done,  in  close  conjunction  ?  We  know 
the  following  fact,  namely,  that  there  was  an  impor- 
tant connection  in  the  mind  of  this  apostle  between 
that  flood,  in  foresight  of  which  Noah,  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  lifted  up  his  warning  voice  in  the  ears  of 
his  disobedient  contemporaries,  and  that  eternal  de- 
struction which  is  now  coming  upon  the  world  of  the 
ungodly,  and  in  prospect  of  which  Christ,  after  His 
death,  sent  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  His  disciples,  and 
through  them,  thus  qualified  for  the  work,  called  men 


108  CHRIST  PREACHING   TO  THE 

to  repentance.  These  two  floods,  (if  for  convenience 
sake  we  may  so  call  them,)  though  distant  in  time — 
the  one  long  since  past,  the  other  yet  to  come — stood 
together  in  the  apostle's  illumined  mind,  closely  re- 
lated the  one  to  the  other.  We  see  this  in  the  follow- 
ing passage  from  the  third  chapter  of  his  Second 
Epistle.  "  By  the  word  of  God,  the  heavens  were  of 
old,  and  the  earth  standing  out  of  the  water  and  in  the 
water  ;  whereby  the  world  that  then  was,  being  over- 
flowed with  water,  perished  :  but  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  which  are  now,  by  the  same  word,  are  kept  in 
store,  reserved  unto  fire  against  the  day  of  judgment 
and  perdition  of  ungodly  men."  The  flood  of  water, 
the  first  flood,  pointed  in  the  apostle's  view  to  the  sec- 
ond, the  flood  of  fire,  by  which  the  world's  final  de- 
struction is  to  be  effected.  He  could  not,  therefore, 
well  be  thinking  of  the  one  without  being  reminded  of 
the  other.  Now,  this  final  destruction  held  a  lofty 
place  in  the  apostle's  present  meditation.  It  was  to 
deliver  men  from  this  destruction,  that  Christ,  as 
quickened  in  the  Spirit,  according  to  the  interpretation 
of  this  phrase,  which  we  have  given,  was  now  em- 
ployed. This  was  the  end  of  that  movement  now 
going  forward  through  the  ministrations  of  the  apostle 
and  his  fellow-laborers  in  the  work  of  Christ ;  and 
that  the  apostle  had  this  in  mind,  appears  from  what  he 
says  in  the  21st  verse.  Having  remarked  that  the 
result  of  Noah's  ministry  was  the  salvation  of  few,  that 
is,  eight  souls,  by  water,  he  adds,  "the  like  figure, 
whereunto  baptism  doth  now  save  us  by  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ."    Baptism,  in  its  signification  and 


SPIEITS  IN  PRISON.  109 

design,  was  no  other  than  the  great  work  of  recover- 
ing mercy,  which  Christ,  as  now  quickened  in  the 
Spirit,  was  accomplishing  among  men.  This  baptism, 
not  the  outward  ceremony  so  called,  not  the  putting 
away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer  of  a  good 
conscience  towards  God — this  name  for  the  great  sal- 
vation now  everywhere  proclaimed,  was  the  antitype 
of  the  water  of  the  deluge — that  water  which,  while  it 
destroyed  the  world,  saved,  as  the  apostle  affirms,  Noah 
and  his  house.  Baptism,  we  say,  was  the  antitype 
(avThvTTov — fidTTTiofiar)  of  that  water  which  floated  and 
defended  the  ark  while  it  submerged  the  earth.  The 
antitype  baptism,  the  great  blessing  which  Christ,  as 
now  quickened  in  the  Spirit,  is  giving  to  men — this 
baptism,  saith  the  apostle,  doth  now  save  us— namely, 
those  of  the  present  generation,  who,  as  did  Noah  and 
his  house,  have  obeyed  the  warning  voice  of  the  Divine 
mercy.  As  the  eight  souls  were  saved  in  the  ark,  so 
we  are  saved  by  the  antitype  baptism,  now  appointed 
as  the  world's  only  hope.  Another  flood  is  approach- 
ing— a  flood  of  devouring  fire,  which  is  to  sweep  ere 
long  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  dissolve  the  ele- 
ments with  fervent  heat.  In  view  of  this  overwhelm- 
ing destruction,  of  which  Noah's  flood  was  a  fore- 
shadow, Christ,  quickened  in  the  Spirit,  and  exerting 
Himself  in  the  anointed  ministers  of  His  grace,  is 
rousing  mankind  from  the  slumber  of  sin,  and  warn- 
ing them  to  make  their  escape,  and  proposing  to  them 
"  baptism  "  as  the  means  ;  and  they  who  hear  His  voice 
and  fall  in  with  His  proposal,  are  saved  from  this  infi- 

*  See  MacKnight's  version. 


110  CHRIST  PREACHING  TO  THE 

nite  ruin,  even  as  they  were  saved  from  the  flood  who, 
according  to  the  Divine  premonition,  took  refuge  in 
the  ark. 

We  see,  then,  that  this  great  destruction,  the  flood 
of  fire,  was  in  the  Apostle's  thought.  Christ,  being 
quickened  in  the  Spirit,  the  religious  stirs  and  move- 
ments of  the  times — the  developments  of  the  saving 
virtue  of  the  antitype  Baptism,  implied  this  :  but  the 
flood  of  Noah  stood  in  his  thought,  (as  we  have  seen, 
and  as  it  well  might  have  done,  from  its  prelusive  and 
prefigurative  relations,)  associated  with  this  other 
coming  storm  of  wrath  ;  it  was  to  him  a  proof  and  a 
pledge,  that  this  more  dreadful  storm  was  truly  coming. 
How  natural  was  it,  therefore,  that  when  he  thought 
of  the  one,  his  second  thought  should  have  been  of  the 
other ;  that  as  he  beheld  the  evidences  of  Christ's 
being  quickened  in  the  Spirit,  in  the  great  exertions 
which  were  then  made  to  save  men  from  the  infinite 
destruction  then  impending,"  he  should  remember  that 
when  the  first  destruction  was  at  hand,  the  same  be- 
nevolent Being  (not  indeed,  as  now,  quickened  in  the 
Spirit,  not  in  that  fulness  of  power  which  He  was  then 
displaying,  yet)  by  the  Spirit  in  some  measure  of  His 
influences,  by  the  same  Spirit,  by  which  he  was  then 
striving  so  mightily  with  mankind,  sought,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  His  prophet,  to  bring  the  in- 
fatuated men  of  that  age  to  repentance,  and  so  deliver 
them  likewise.     And  if  it  was  natural  for  him  to  be 

*  Dr.  Owen  thinks  the  Apostle's  primary  reference  was  to  the 
approaching  destruction  of  the  Jewish  Church  and  State,  but 
that  he  also  embraced  in  his  view  the  destruction  of  the  world. 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  \\\ 

reminded  of  this,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  spoke 
of  it. 

There  is  one  expression  in  our  English  translation 
of  the  passage,  which  some  persons,  probably,  would 
lay  stress  upon,  as  being  favorable  to  the  interpretation 
which  we  reject:  "By  which,  he  went,  and  preached, 
etc.,"  (nopev'helg  eKrjpvgev).  But  there  arc  examples  to 
show,  both  in  the  Scriptures  and  in  classic  authors, 
that  no  special  emphasis  should  be  given  to  this  form 
of  expression.  Among  Scriptural  examples  see  Eph. 
ii.  17,  "  Having  abolished — the  enmity — and  came 
and  preached  (teal  eX'how  evrjyycXiaaro)  peace  to  you  who 
were  afar  off,  and  to  them  who  were  nigh." — "'  It  is 
certain  that  our  Lord,  after  his  resurrection,  did  not 
go  personally  to  the  Gentiles  to  preach  peace  to  them. 
He  preached  to  them  by  his  apostles  only.  But  if 
Christ  is  said  by  Paul  to  go  and  do  what  he  did  by 
his  apostles  only,  he  may,  with  equal  propriety,  be  said 
by  Peter,  to  go  and  do  what  he  did  by  his  prophet 
Noah."  He  went  and  preached,  is  but  a  pleonasm  for, 
he  preached. 

According  to  the  exposition  now  given  of  the 
passage,  the  sense  and  connection  of  it  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  following  paraphrase  : 

Christians  should  not  be  discouraged  by  their  suf- 
ferings on  account  of  well-doing.  No  ultimate  evil 
will  come  to  them  from  these  sufferings.  They  may 
convince  themselves  of  this  by  considering  the  example 
of  Christ.  In  order  to  save  mankind,  to  bring  us  to 
God,  He  underwent  the  greatest  extremity  of  suf- 
fering, having  been  put  to  death  in  the  flesh.     Yet 


112  CHRIST  PREACHING   TO   THE 

His  unparalleled  sufferings  were  no  detriment  to  Him 
in  respect  of  His  great  undertaking.  So  far  from 
this,  they  were  the  foundation  of  His  success  :  all 
thenceforth  was  life  in  His  body,  the  Church,  and  the 
world  also  felt  His  vitalizing  power.  By  what  abun- 
dant manifestations  of  the  Spirit,  and  what  glorious 
triumphs  hath  He  since  then  been  carrying  on  His 
mighty  work  of  saving  men  from  that  infinite  wrath 
which  is  so  fast  coming  on  the  world?  And  this  re* 
minds  me  how  this  same  mighty  Deliverer  exerted 
Himself  by  the  Spirit  through  the  ministrations  of 
Noah,  when  the  deluge  was  at  hand.  He  then 
preached,  by  His  faithful  prophet,  to  the  disobedient 
persons  of  that  generation,  whose  disembodied  spirits 
are  now  in  the  prison  of  hell,  bearing  the  just  punish- 
ment of  their  incorrigible  impenitence.  The  great 
patience  of  God  once  waited  on  those  unhappy  per- 
sons for  a  long  period,  even  one  hundred  and  twenty 
years,  during  which  time  the  ark  was  being  built. 
The  result,  though  small,  was  not  an  entire  failure. 
Eight  persons  were  saved  in  the  ark  by  that  water 
which  bore  it  up  and  defended  it,  while  it  drowned  all 
the  world  besides.  The  salvation  of  these  few  was 
the  fruit  of  that  same  Divine  grace  which  is  now  dis- 
covering itself  in  our  deliverance  from  the  greater 
wrath  to  come,  and  of  which  baptism,  in  its  significa- 
tion and  purport,  is  the  compendium  ;  baptism,  the 
antitype  of  the  water  which  saved  the  family  of  Noah . 
I  do  not  mean  the  external  rite  merely,  but  the  thing 
thereby  represented,  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience 
toward  God,  a  conscience  purified  through  the  blood 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  113 

of  Christ,  and  following1  its  convictions  in  piously 
observing  the  sacramental  ordinance  of  the  Christian 
Church  :  baptism,  another  name  for  the  influences  and 
effects  of  Christ,  as  quickened  in  the  Spirit — this  anti- 
type baptism,  through  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  which 
is  the  consummation  of  His  work,  and  the  grand 
proof  of  His  redeeming  virtue — baptism,  I  say,  doth 
now  save  us  from  the  coming  vengeance  of  God,  even 
as  Noah  and  his  household  were  saved  from  the  flood 
which  drowned  the  world,  by  the  typical  ark  and 
water. 


VI. 

IMPOTENCE   OF  WILL: 

WILL-NOT    A    REAL    CAN-NOT 


God  has  given  to  creatures  different  kinds  of  power, 
or  power  to  do  different  things.  Reptiles  can  creep, 
fishes  can  swim,  birds  can  fly,  quadrupeds  can  walk  : 
Men  can  think,  reason,  abstract  and  classify,  discourse, 
discriminate  between  good  and  evil,  can  do  good  and 
evil,  love  and  hate. 

The  power  which  creatures  have  by  their  nature,  or 
what  they  are  as  creatures,  is,  strictly  speaking,  their 
natural  power.  The  word  natural  is  applied  in  scrip- 
ture (1  Cor.  ii.  14),  to  a  man  as  unrenewed ;  but  it  is 
now  used  tropically  ;  in  its  proper  meaning  it  defines 
what  pertains  to  the  make  or  constitution  of  beings — 
their  nature,  as  we  commonly  say.  The  power  then 
which  man  has  as  man,  that  whereby  he  is  recognized 
as  man  or  human,  is  man's  natural  power  :  power  to 
think,  reason,  discourse,  distinguish  between  good  and 
evil,  etc.,  in  short,  to  do  "whatever  a  human  being  as 
such  can  do  by  virtue  of  his  having  the  human  na- 
ture. 

The  epithet  moral  has  been  applied  to  power,  and 
(114) 


WILL-NOT  A  REAL  CAN-NOT.  115 

so  we  have  the  phrase  moral  power  ;  and  it  has  been 
used  as  if  it  denoted  the  contrast  of  natural  power  ; 
or,  as  if  the  power  now  called  moral,  was  not  natural, 
or  did  not  belong  to  man  as  man.     It  should  never  be 
so  used.     There  are  but  two  senses  in  which  it  may  be 
taken  :    Power  may  be  called  moral,  from  the  sphere 
of  its  activity,  from  its  being-  concerned  with  tilings  of 
a  moral  nature,  things  morally  good  or  evil,  right  or 
wrong.     Power  does  not,  on  this  account,  cease  to  be 
natural.     Power  to  think,  reason,  etc.,  in  the  moral 
sphere,  is  as  proper  to  human  nature,  as  aught  else 
that  belongs  to  it;  nothing  is  more  natural  to  man 
than  this  moral  power.     It  is  only  by  a  metonomy, 
transferring  the  quality  of  the  objective  to  the  sub- 
jective, that  power  in  this  exercise  of  it,  has  come 
to  be  called  moral.     It  is  not  called  moral  because 
it  is  itself  so,  any  more  now  than  when  the  objects 
with   which  it  is  concerned  are  not   of  a  moral  na- 
ture.    Why  should  moral  and  natural  power  be  made 
contraries,  when  moral  power  is  still  natural  ?     Taken 
in  the  remaining  sense,  the  phrase  is  figuratively  ap- 
plied to  that  which  is  not  power  properly  so  called  ; 
namely,  to  a  disposition  or  internal  state,  whereby  one 
is  specially  apt  or  propense  to  a  certain  use  of  nat- 
ural   power.      One    may    name    this    power,   if   lie 
will,  but  he  does  so   by  rhetorical  license,  unless  he 
would  confound  a  disposition  to  use  a  thing,  with  the 
thing  itself.     In  no  application  of  the  term,  then,  is 
moral  power  a  real  antithesis  to  natural. 

There  is  however  a  reason  for  calling  disposition,  in 
this  case,  power.     Disposition,  by  continued  exercise 


116  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL: 

of  the  power  it  sets  one  to  the  use  of,  increases  in 
favor  of  that  use  j  aud  even  by  its  first  exercise 
may  acquire  a  fixity  unchangeable  except  by  foreign 
power,  as  in  the  case  of  Adam  in  his  first  sin,  who 
thereby  subjected  himself  to  a  propensity  to  sin,  not  to 
be  overcome  except  by  renewing  grace.  It  is  not 
strange — it  was  indeed  almost  inevitable  in  a  free  use  of 
language — that  such  a  propensity  or  disposition  should 
be  called  power,  and  there  is  no  inconvenience  from 
so  calling  it,  provided  metaphor  or  rhetoric  do  not 
afterwards  pass  itself  as  logic. 

The  essential  difference  between  disposition  and 
power  appears  in  this,  that  disposition  to  use  power 
in  a  certain  way  may  be  changed  ;  whereas,  natural 
power  cannot  be  changed,  without  making  the  agent 
another  being  ;  in  which  case  change  is  but  destruc- 
tion. A  man  as  long  as  he  is  a  man,  will  have  man's 
natural  power,  power  to  do  what  is  proper  to  a  crea- 
ture of  man's  order.  In  the  great  change  called  Re- 
generation, nothing  in  effect  is  done,  but  to  bring 
about  a  new  use  of  natural  power  by  putting  it  under 
the  command  of  a  new  disposition.  The  subject  of 
this  change,  as  to  his  humanity  simply,  is  exactly  what 
he  was  ;  he  has  acquired  no  new  power,  though  from 
the  new  disposition  which  controls  him,  and  the  con- 
sequent new  use  of  his  power,  he  is  sometimes  called  a 
new  man. 

As  disposition  to  a  certain  use  of  power  is  not  itself 
power  properly  so  called,  so  neither  is  the  hindrance 
to  the  use  of  power  arising  from  an  opposing  dis- 
position, properly  called  inability.     Terms  expressive 


WILL-NOT  A   REAL   CAN-NOT.  117 

of  inability  are  often  applied  to  it,  but  they  are  so 
applied  only  in  free  or  tropical  speech  :  As  to  effect, 
the  hindrance  is  equivalent  to  the  want  of  power,  and 
is  therefore  taken  for  this,  and  called  by  its  name, 
inability.  We  say  the  man  cannot  act,  only  meaning 
however  that  he  is  invincibly  indisposed,  or  set  against 
acting.  The  connection  or  obvious  drift  of  language 
in  such  cases,  generally  makes  the  meaning  unmistak- 
able. When,  e.  g.  the  Scripture  says  that  Joseph's 
brothers  "  hated  him  and  could  not  speak  peaceably  to 
him,"  it  implies,  that  their  hatred  apart,  they  could 
have  spoken  to  him  peaceably  :  they  might  have  so 
spoken  to  him,  had  they  not  been  otherwise  disposed. 
They  were  therefore  able,  while  unable  ;  which  they 
would  not  have  been,  if  the  inability  imputed  to  them 
had  been  a  want  of  natural  power  :  it  was  spoken  of 
as  inability  by  the  license  of  rhetoric. 

Nevertheless,  this  moral  or  figurative  impotence, 
however  denominated,  is  a  reality :  it  hinders  the  use 
of  power  :  if  man  were  a  brute  or  a  stone,  he  would 
not  be  farther  from  the  holy  use  of  the  power  of  a 
man  than  it  is  certain  he  will  be,  while  left  to  him- 
self in  a  state  of  subjection  to  a  disposition  to  sin. 
Indeed,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  disposition  may 
be  said  to  be  natural  to  man.  He  has  it  from  his  birth 
(Ps.  li.  5.)  He  begins  accountable  existence  with  it, 
preventing  grace  apart.  It  is  no  part  of  the  human 
nature  as  God  made  it ;  is  the  effect  of  the  apostacy  ; 
but  through  the  apostacy  it  is  the  sad  inheritance  of 
man,  and  may  be  figuratively  termed  a  second  nature. 
This  the  Christian  ministry  preach,  as  the  fundamen- 


118  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL: 

tal  fact  on  "which  Christianity  is  built.  And  it  pre- 
sents a  question  of  great  moment,  as  to  appeals  to  nat- 
ural power  in  preaching.  Man  is  still  man,  a  creature 
having  the  powerproper  to  man  ;  but,  as  to  a  holy  useof 
it,  it  is  as  none,  because  of  a  bias  or  disposition  to  evil 
which  underlies  it ;  as  it  were,  a  second  nature.  Now 
the  question  just  referred  to  is  this  :  Shall  we,  on  the 
ground  simply  of  man's  having  natural  power,  urge 
the  holy  exercise  of  it,  just  as  if  this  hindrance  to  such 
an  exercise  of  it,  did  not  make  it  certain,  that  he  will 
not,  of  himself  alone,  exercise  it  thus  ?  The  certainty 
is  known  to  us,  and  we  endeavor  to  acquaint  him  with 
it ;  we  state  the  evidence  of  it  to  him  ;  we  require  him 
to  believe  it ;  we  would  have  him  feel  as  we  ourselves 
do,  that  his  existence  is  not  more  certain,  than  that  he, 
if  left  to  himself,  will  continue  to  exercise  his  natural 
power  as  he  has  been  doing  in  servitude  to  sin.  Shall 
we  still  urge  him  to  the  holy  use  of  it,  simply  on  the 
ground  of  his  having  it?  Self-evident  it  indeed  is, 
that  he  is  under  obligation  so  to  use  it ;  his  having  it 
involves  this  ;  he  ought  so  to  use  it,  and  will  stand 
condemned  before  God  and  his  own  conscience  if  he 
does  not ;  nevertheless,  if  he  is  to  believe  what  with 
so  much  earnestness  we  tell  him,  will  he  have  any 
more  motive  or  reason  to  exert  himself  as  we  require, 
than  he  would,  if  natural  power  did  not  belong  to 
him  ?  Though  he  is  without  excuse,  though  sin  is  sin, 
even  when  committed  in  a  state  of  absolute  despair, 
yet  despair — the  certainty  of  continuing  in  an  existing 
state  of  sin — this  certainty  felt  and  in  force  on  the 
mind,  as  in  the  supposed  case  it  would  be,  is,  by  the 


WILL-NOT  A  REAL  CAN-NOT.  119 

unchangeable  law  of  voluntary  activity,  no  less  effectu- 
al to  hinder  even  the  attempting  a  change  of  state, 
than  natural  impotence  itself.  Let  the  question  be 
considered  :  Should  preaching,  since  the  fact  is  indu- 
bitably so,  ever  limit  the  ground  of  its  urgency  with 
unrenewed  men,  simply  and  absolutely,  to  their  having 
natural  power?  Under  the  circumstances,  what  were 
more  absurd  than  even  an  attempt  to  do  what  would 
be  required  of  them  ?  Nor  can  we  conceive  of  their 
making  an  attempt  in  earnest.  Palpably,  therefore, 
they  must  not  be  shut  up  to  this  consideration,  as  a 
reason  for  their  making  one.  There  is,  in  truth,  no 
persuasive  force  in  it  whatever,  taken  by  itself.  It  is 
deprived  of  all  such  force  by  the  pressure  of  despair. 
Some  door  of  hope  must  be  opened  to  effort,  or  effort 
will,  nay,  cannot  but  be  forborne.  The  mind  is  so 
made  that  it  cannot  exert  itself  in  such  a  case.  Some 
other  argument  must  be  used,  which  will  not  leave  the 
door  of  hope  closed  and  barred.  Along  with  natural 
power,  mention  must  be  made  of  some  other  power 
whereby  the  holy  use  of  natural  power  may  be  brought 
about.  That  is  to  say  :  the  proffered  Help  and  Pres- 
ence of  the  Holy  Spirit  must  be  announced  to  the  un- 
converted in  the  way  of  encouragement. 

Let  it  not  seem  that  there  is  no  need  of  saying  this  ; 
there  has  been,  if  there  be  not  still,  a  delinquency  in 
preaching  in  regard  to  it.  Has  not  preaching  re- 
frained, on  theory, — from  setting  forth  the  hope  of 
the  co-operation  of  the  Spirit,  as  a  motive  to  exer- 
tion, previous  to  conversion  ?  By  divers  considera- 
tions,   it    has    sought    to  set    natural    power   into 


120  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL: 

exercise,  but  the  hope  of  the  Spirit's  co-operation, 
it  did  not,  and,  with  theoretic  consistency,  could 
not, .  insist  upon.  This  co-operation  was  promised 
on  the  condition  of  actual  repentance  ;  but  it  was  not 
held  forth  as  an  indispensable  motive  to  repentance. 
The  unconverted  were  pressed  to  repentance,  just  and 
only  because  they  had  natural  power.  Having  it  they 
were  under  obligation,  and  it  was  demanded  of  them 
to  fulfill  their  obligation,  to  do  their  duty,  because 
obligation  and  duty  existed.  "With  much  persistency 
they  were  pressed  to  this  ;  and  the  course  was  wont 
to  be  justified  by  its  tendency  to  beget  self-despair, — 
an  almost  phrenzy  of  desperation,  wherein  they  might 
perhaps  break  down,  as  the  phrase  was,  under  a  sheer 
necessity  of  an  entire  self-surrender  to  the  Divine  will, 
whatever  it  might  be,  concerning  them.  How  strange 
the  outrage  which  such  a  course  obviously  does  to  the 
principles  of  human  action!  What  though  grace  be 
not  necessary  to  accountableness?  That  is  to  say: 
"What  though  the  obligation  of  the  unconverted  have  a 
sufficient  ground  in  the  fact  of  their  having  natural 
power,  so  that  sin  in  all  circumstances  Is  inexcusable  ? 
If  the  object  were  simply  to  convict  them,  or  break 
them  down  through  despair,  the  course  pursued  might 
for  that  purpose  have  sufficed.  But  as  the  end  which 
the  preaching  should  have  aimed  at,  was  to  ivin  or 
convert  them,  nothing  can  be  more  glaring  than  the 
absurdity  of  this  method.  So  far,  this  preaching  was 
not  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel :  it  was  simply  legal. 
The  Gospel  ignores  and  virtually  condemns  it. 


WILL-NOT  A  REAL   CAN-NOT.  121 

But  it  may  be  that  the  day  of  preaching,  of  this  form, 
is  past,  and  that  it  need  not  have  been  adverted  to, 
except,  perhaps,  as  indicating  progress.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  there  is  doubtless  room  for  progress  still,  both  in 
the  theory  and  practice  of  preaching  to  the  uncon- 
verted ;  especially,  it  would  seem,  in  regard  to  appeals 
to  natural  power,  and  the  activity  thence  resulting, 
previous  to  conversion.  Let  this  point  for  a  moment 
engage  our  attention  : — 

It  often  happens  that  awakened  persons,  under 
preaching,  in  general  sound,  are  perplexed  with  what 
to  them  lias  a  formidable  aspect,  the  alternative  of 
either  sinning  or  doing  nothing  in  order  to  their  con- 
version. They  understand  the  -  assertion  that  "  what- 
soever is  not  of  faith  is  sin,"  as  teaching  that  all 
activity  before  conversion  is  sinful,  and  therefore  for- 
bidden ;  whence  it  seems  to  them,  as  they  are  not  yet 
converted,  the  necessity  exists,  if  their  conversion  is  to 
have  place,  that  it  take  place  without  previous  agency 
of  theirs,  or  by  an  agency  which  they  ought  not  to 
use.  Their  case,  therefore,  is  not,  in  their  view,  much 
different  from  what  it  would  be,  if  they  were  thrown 
upon  their  own  mere  power,  without  the  overture  of 
aid  from  the  Holy  Spirit.  As  to  activity  or  effort,  in 
order  to  conversion,  they  are  at  an  absolute  stand. 
They  must  not  commit  new  sin  ;  yet,  since  they  are 
still  unconverted,  what  else  are  they  to  do,  if  they  do 
anything  ?  If  they  should  hear,  reflect,  resolve,  be 
active  or  exercised  in  any  way,  would  they  not  herein 
be  sinning,  and  so  making  their  case  worse  ?  This  is 
far  from  an  uncommon  difficulty,  and  there  have  been 
6 


122  IMPOTENCE  OF   WILL: 

three  methods  of  dealing  with  it  in  preaching.  Some 
preachers  have  evaded  or  ignored,  or  possibly  have 
not  been  aware  of  it.  They  have  spoken  to  the 
awakened  as  if  there  were  no  cause  or  place  for 
trouble  to  them  from  this  source  ;  as  if  their  way  could 
not  but  be  plain  before  them  ;  and,  sometimes,  they 
have  pledged  the  promises  of  God  to  guarantee  suc- 
cess, if  they  did  but  persevere  in  it.  By  others,  to  the 
demand  from  the  awakened  : — "  How  am  I  to  repent  ? 
What  way  must  I  take?  Must  I  needs  sin  or  do 
nothing?"  this  reply  has  been  usually  given: — "I 
have  nothing  to  say  as  to  the  How,  or  the  Means  of 
repenting,  I  only  say,  Repent,  repent  this  instant,  the 
next  may  be  too  late."  Yet  another  answer  has  been 
made  :  "  True,  you  will  be  sinning  if  you  do  anything 
before  conversion,  but  you  may  be  sinning  more  if  you 
do  nothing  ;"  and  assuming  a  choice  of  evils  to  be 
inevitable,  that  was  recommended  which  it  was  sup- 
posed was  the  less  sinful  of  the  two.  How  plainly 
can  neither  of  these  courses  be  justified  ?  The  first  is 
grossly  discreditable  to  the  pulpit ;  yet  more  so  is  the 
last,  which  expressly  counsels  what  it  admits  to  be 
sinning,  as  the  way  to  conversion  from  sin,  and  that 
on  the  self-contradiction,  that  a  choice  between  greater 
and  less  is  admissible,  where  both  are  forbidden.  The 
other,  also,  though  under  a  show  of  logic,  assumes 
what  every  one  cannot  but  know  to  be  untenable  :  as 
if  there  were  indeed  no  place  for  preliminary  atten- 
tion, or  thought,  or  feeling,  where  conversion  has  not 
already  had  place  :  As  if,  e.  g.  wlion  the  jailer  asked 
with  trembling  and  astonishment,  "What  shall  I  do  to 


WILL-NOT  A  REAL  CAN-NOT.  123 

be  paved  ?"  Paul  should  have  said  to  him  :  "  You  are 
sinning  inputting  the  question,  and  in  being  excited 
as  you  are."     Or  as  if  Peter  should  have  made  a  like 
reply  to  his  hearers,  when  pricked  to  the  heart,  they 
asked,  "  What  shall  we  do?"     A  psychological  theory, 
or  doctrinal  creed  which  excludes  such  preliminary 
exercises  as  necessarily  sinful,  in  this  respect,  most 
certainly,  falsities  itself.    The  exercises  in  question  are 
not  spiritual,  but  neither  are  they  to  be  rejected  as 
necessarily  carnal  or  sinful.     The  alternative  of  either 
doing  nothing,  or  adding  sin  to  sin  previous  to  con- 
version, is  without  foundation  or  reality.     There  is 
no  such  alternative.     It  is  not  so  that  there  must 
needs  be  sinning  in  all  activity,  antecedent,  or  in  order 
to  actual  conversion.     When  God,  seeking  to  bring 
sinners  to  repentance,  challenges  their  attention,  they 
do  not  sin  in  giving  their   attention.     When,  with 
reference  to  conversion,  he  urges  them  to  consider 
their  ways,  he  does  not  set  them  to  doing  what  is  in 
itself  wrong.     When  convinced  of  sin,  and  alarmed  at 
their  danger,  they  seek  to  make   their  escape,  and 
struggle  against  difficulties,  and  in  their  distress  ask 
what  they  must  do,  and  cry  for  help  from  above,  their 
exercises,  it  is  true,  are  not  yet  spiritual ;  but  they 
are  not  to  be  on  any  account  blamed  or  regretted  ; 
they  are  the  regular  response  of  simple  nature  to 
divine  appeals  to  it ;  a  response,  of  which  the  absence 
would  be  sinful.     God  surely  does  not  intend  to  pro- 
duce in  us  any  impure  excitement,  but  who  knows  not 
that  He  does  address  Himself  to  the  nature  He  has 
given  us  ;  to  every  part  of  our  higher  nature ;    to 


124  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL: 

reason,  to  conscience,  to  self-love,  self-respect,  etc. ; 
and  this  before  and  wit:i  reference  to  conversion,  as 
■well  as  afterwards  ;  and  if  the  exercise  of  these  ele- 
ments of  our  nature  in  immediate  correspondence  to 
His  addresses,  that  is  to  say,  an  exercise  of  them, 
which,  like  the  addresses,  is  before  and  with  reference 
to  actual  conversion  ;  if  this  were  necessarily  sinful, 
is  not  God  Himself,  in  this  case,  the  responsible  author 
of  sin  ?  We  ought  to  respond  to  His  appeals  ;  we 
shall  sin,  with  aggravation,  if  we  do  not ;  if  we  must 
also  sin,  when  we  do  respond  to  them,  has  He  not 
laid  us  under  a  necessity  of  sinning,  and  in  truth  in- 
cited us  to  it  ? 

The  importance  of  this  point  justifies  further  re- 
mark. The  preliminary  exercise  of  the  simple  prop- 
erties of  our  nature,  in  brief,  our  natural  power,  is, 
in  fact,  the  proper  subjective  means,  whereby,  through 
the  grace  of  God,  our  nature  recovers  itself  from  the 
bondage  of  its  corruption  ;  and  it  is  precisely  this 
which  suasory  preaching,  whether  aware  of  the  fact 
or  not,  aims  and  labors  to  produce  in  its  hearers,  in 
all  its  applications  to  them  previous  to  conversion. 
In  other  words,  through  natural  power  exercising 
itself  as  it  may  without  being  as  yet  under  grace,  it 
seeks  to  bring  men  into  a  state  of  grace,  the  ultimate 
end  of  preaching.  It  does  not  stimulate  this  power 
to  the  doing  of  that,  apart  from  grace,  of  which  it 
publishes  the  certainty,  that  grace  apart,  it  never 
will  do  ;  but  to  the  doing  of  what  it  unquestionably 
may  do,  and  of  what  it  must  do,  as  the  condition 
of  the  removal  by  grace  of  the  ground  of  certainty 


WILL-NOT  A   REAL   CAN-NOT.  125 

aforesaid,  and  a  consequent  just  use  of  natural 
power. 

It  is  of  necessity  that  we  take  this  course  in  preach- 
ing ;  we  could  otherwise  do  absolutely  nothing  in  the 
way  of  earnest  persuasion.  How  could  we  begin  ? 
Recognizing  man  as  under  a  certainty,  equivalent  in 
effect  to  a  necessity,  of  sinning,  we  should  not  be  more 
incapable  of  earnestness  in  addressing  stones  or  the 
dead,  than  in  urging  him  to  repentance.  Earnestness 
depends  on  hope,  instead  of  which,  there  is,  in  this  case, 
by  the  terms  of  the  statement,  absolute  despair  of  the 
desired  result  from  the  course  pursued  ;  it  would  be 
pressing  men,  in  the  mere  exercise  of  natural  power, 
to  what  it  could  not  expect  from  them,  as  the  result 
of  this  exercise  :  in  this  it  is  impossible  it  should  be 
in  earnest ;  it  would  be  strictly  absurd  ;  and  to  hope 
for  the  divine  co-operation  with  it,  would  be  looking 
to  God  to  sanctify  absurdity  by  lending  Himself 
to  it. 

Surely  there  is  a  possibility,  a  place  of  beginning, 
to  earnest  persuasion  in  the  pulpit!  Shall  a  theory 
be  accepted  which  implies  that  there  is  none  ?  Man- 
ifestly there  is  no  such  place  or  possibility,  if  man  is 
required  to  look  on  himself  as  under  the  alternative 
of  either  sinning  or  doing  nothing  in  order  to  conver- 
sion. Persuasion  to  doing  nothing*  is  inconceivable  ; 
and  persuasion  to  sinning,  is,  itself,  whether  it  means 
so  or  not,  doing  what  it  urges.  There  is,  therefore, 
some  form  of  allowable  activity,  which,  though  it  is 
not  spiritual,  is  not  of  the  nature  of  sin.  Man  in  a 
state  of  sin,  and  man  in  a  state  of  grace,  are,  indeed, 


12C  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL: 

the  two  terms  set  before  the  preacher.  Man  has  to 
start  from  the  first,  and  not  to  stop  short  of  the  second. 
He  remains  in  the  first  if  he  be  not  actually  in  the  sec- 
ond. If  he  should  die  before  completing  the  transi- 
tion from  the  first  to  the  second,  he  would  die  in  his 
sins.  In  man  himself,  however,  there  is  somewhat 
common  to  both  states,  namely  the  constitutional  ele- 
ments of  humanity,  or  our  natural  power.  He  has 
this — otherwise  he  were  not  man — in  both.  He  has 
it  in  the  transition  from  the  one  to  the  other.  In 
this  transition  he  has  and  he  exercises  his  natural 
power,  which  exercise  of  it  is  not  already  spiritual, 
else  he  were  not  still  in  the  transition  ;  yet  neither, 
if  the  transition  be  transition  indeed,  is  it  sinful. 
But,  on  the  contrary,  being  necessary  to  conversion, 
it  is  virtually  included  in  the  call  to  conversion,  and 
the  suppression  or  absence  of  it  were  a  contempt  of 
that  call.  This  preliminary  or  intermediate  activity, 
destitute  though  it  be  of  spirituality,  is  the  condition 
of  conversion.  Take  it  away,  leave  no  place  for  it, 
and  the  Gospel  and  man  can  never  be  brought  to- 
gether, except  by  miracle  or  without  the  use  of  any 
appropriate  means. 

A  word  on  the  form  of  this  transitional  activity,  or 
the  particular  exercises  and  efforts  of  which  it  con- 
sists. These,  it  is  obvious,  are  different  in  different 
cases.  In  general  they  should  be  such,  whatever  these 
be,  as  are  comprehended  in  a  just  response  of  nature 
to  the  appeals  which  are  made  to  it  with  reference  to 
conversion.  These  appeals  arc  not  always  met  or 
heeded  at  once.     Nature,  perhaps,  is  not  sufficiently 


WILL-NOT  A   REAL   CAN-NOT.  127 

awake  to  recognize  them.  Perhaps  they  have  to 
make  their  way  against  manifold  impediments  and 
disadvantages ;  previous  instruction,  argumentation, 
reproof,  remonstrance,  may  be  rrecessary  ;  and  after 
the  contact  with  nature  has  been  effected,  she  may  be 
thrown  into  strife  with  herself,  reason  contending  with 
passion,  conscience  with  the  heart,  the  will  with  inte- 
rest ;  whence  indirection,  wavering,  delay,  obliquity 
in  the  course  of  the  action.  Such,  more  or  less,  is 
the  general  fact.  Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  the 
activity  would  almost  seem  to  be  normal  or  faultless. 
When  it  is  so,  the  end  is  near.  Nature  cannot  be 
true  to  herself  without  yielding  herself  up  to  the 
dominion  of  truth.  Swift  as  time,  now,  is  the  prog- 
ress to  conversion.  Let  preachers  understand  this. 
Let  them  study  psychology.  Let  them  acquaint  them- 
selves completely  with  the  many-stringed  instrument 
they  are  required  to  play  on.  Let  them  learn  to  play 
on  it  skillfully,  so  that  there  shall  be  no  discord,  no 
movement  too  slow  or  rapid,  no  pitch  too  high  or  low, 
nothing  but  pure  harmony,  the  sweet  concert  of  all 
nature's  powers  and  feelings.  This  should  be  their 
aim  ;  with  all  possible  earnestness,  intelligence  and 
tact,  should  they  pursue  it ;  never  forgetting  that  to 
themselves  and  their  hearers,  the  present  opportunity 
may  be  the  last. 

But  the  whole  truth  has  not  yet  been  told.  Where 
the  response  of  nature  terminates  in  actual  conversion, 
the  result  is  not  from  nature,  but  from  the  special  grace 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  not  in  nature  to  remove  the 
ground  of  the  certainty  of  continuing  under  sin.     It  is 


128  IMPOTENCE  OF   WILL: 

not  in  nature  to  do  this,  even  under  the  best  advant- 
ages of  common  grace.  Though  it  is  done  through  an 
exercise  of  natural  power,  under  external  appliances, 
it  is  not  this  that  does  it.  Something  happened  to  na- 
ture in  the  fall  which  made  recovery  impracticable  by 
any  merely  natural  operation.  It  retained  its  essen- 
tial elements,  otherwise  it  were  no  longer  the  human 
nature.  It  still  was  and  is  a  living,  active,  responsible 
power  ;  but  as  to  a  holy  use  of  its  faculties,  it  became 
blind,  torpid,  dead.  Deep  within  fallen  nature  itself 
lies  the  ground  of  its  certain  continuance  in  a  state  of 
sin.  A  renovation,  a  "  new  birth  "  of  nature  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  render  it  properly  susceptive  of  pure 
influences  from  without ;  in  order,  indeed,  to  its  having 
any  appreciative  views  of  the  objects  towards  which 
its  highest  activity  is  demanded. 

The  question  has  been  asked  :  "  Can  man  regener- 
ate himself  ?"  This  is  asking  whether  man  can  do  a 
work  proper  to  God.  Or  whether  that  which  is  be- 
gotten or  born  of  God,  may  also  be  begotten  or  born 
of  man.  Man  has  no  power  of  any  kind,  directly  to 
regenerate  himself.  He  is  not  required  to  do  this,  lie 
is  required  to  do  only  what  he  can  do.  He  is  required 
to  be  active  in  order  to  regeneration  ;  generally — not 
always,  otherwise  no  infants  are  regenerated, — but 
generally,  he  is  active  in  the  regenerative  process  ;  but 
the  work  of  regeneration  itself,  is  no  more  his  work 
than  his  generation  or  creation.  For  this  work  man 
has  no  natural  power.  To  reverse  that  law,  whereby 
after  sinning,  a  disposition  to  sin  became  as  a  second 
nature  ;  to  displace  the  ground  in  which  this  disposition 


WILL-NOT  A  REAL  VAN-NOT.  129 

is  rooted  ;  to  put  nature  back  to  where  it  was  before 
the  fall,  this  belongs  to  no  human  power  ;  God  alone 
can  do  it,  and  it  were  absurd  to  set  man  about  it.  He 
may  be  set  to  doing  what  may  be  connected  with  it  as 
a  means  ;  and  what  may  result  in  it,  under  Divine 
direction  and  influence  ;  and  so,  in  a  figurative 
way  of  speaking,  he  may  be  required  to  regenerate 
himself.  The  command  of  Scripture,  "Make  you  a 
new  heart,"  is  equivalent  to  this  :  If  men  would  obey 
this  command,  their  activity  would  result  in  regenera- 
tion ;  having  a  new  heart,  supposes  regeneration.  But 
the  making  a  new  heart  is  to  be  done  in  some  mode  or 
by  some  means,  and  by  a  familiar  use  of  language,  that 
which  is  done  in  the  use  of  means,  is  spoken  of  as  if  it 
were  done  by  the  instrumental  agency  itself,  though 
in  truth  it  is  the  product  of  the  Divine  power  :  as  when 
we  say,  e.g.  that  a  planter  has  made  himself  bread- 
•  corn,  or  a  sick  man  made  himself  well ;  not  meaning 
to  deny  that  man  might  as  soon  make  a  world  from 
nothing,  as  do  either  of  these  by  a  direct  act  of  his 
own  power  or  will. 

What  has  been  said  on  this  subject  may  be  briefly 
expressed  in  the  following  propositions  : 

1.  Man's  natural  power  is  power  to  do  what  is  pro- 
per to  man,  by  virtue  of  his  having  the  human  nature, 
or  being  man. 

2.  Since  the  fall,  the  natural  power  of  man  is  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  a  disposition  to  sin,  which 
makes  it  certain  that  left  to  himself  he  will  remain  in 
this  subjection. 

3.  The  Gospel  bringing  grace  to  man,  makes  ap- 

6* 


130  IMPOTENCE  OF  WILL. 

peals    to   his  natural    power   with    reference   to   his 
conversion,  or  recovery  from  servitude  to  sin. 

•A.  As  it  is  certain  and  known  that,  left  to  him- 
self, man  will  abide  in  servitude  to  sin,  or  an  un- 
converted state,  and  so  believing  would,  on  the  mere 
ground  of  his  having  natural  power,  be  without  hope 
from  effort,  and  could  not  earnestly  attempt  it  ;  he  is 
therefore,  not  to  be  set  to  exert  himself,  simply  on  this 
ground  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  be  animated  to 
effort  by  the  overture  of  help  from  the  co-operation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

5.  All  activity  previous  or  preliminary  to  actual 
conversion,  is  not  necessarily  of  the  nature  of  sin  : 
some  such  activity  is  generally  necessary  to  conversion, 
and  is  therefore  virtually  required  in  the  call  to  it. 
The  activity  which  is  necessary  to  conversion  is  not 
already  spiritual,  but  neither  is  it  sinful.  It  is  not  spir- 
itual, because  conversion  has  not  place  as  yet ;  it  is 
not  sinful,  because  conversion  is  not  attainable  without 
it.  The  activity  which,  in  fact,  generally  precedes 
conversion,  is  different  in  different  cases :  it  is  seldom, 
if  ever,  without  much  fault.  When  it  is  as  it  should 
be,  it  admits  of  no  obliquity,  delay,  or  wavering,  but 
proceeds  directly  to  its  end. 

6.  When  activity,  in  order  to  conversion,  terminates 
in  it,  it  does  this,  not  of  itself,  but  by  a  special  agency 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whereby  our  corrupted  nature  is 
renewed  and  restored. 


VII. 

THEORY  OF  PREPARATION  FOR  PREACHING. 


1.  Amtdst  the  diversities  of  practice  in  preparing  for 
the  pulpit,  are  there  no  principles  to  be  inviolably  fol- 
lowed ?  Is  there  no  theory  of  preparation  ?  Undoubt- 
edly there  is  ;  and,  assured  that  the  intelligent  appli- 
cation of  theory  to  practice,  in  this  as  in  every  other 
case,  cannot  but  be  useful,  we  shall  attempt  a  brief 
analysis  of  our  subject.  If  what  we  have  to  say  shall 
incline  none  to  change  or  modify  the  method  to  which 
they  have  been  accustomed,  our  sketch  may  possibly 
be  of  some  advantage  to  those  who  are  yet  to  form  a 
habit  of  preparation.  We  have  to  do  with  a  difficult 
subject,  and  one  which  demands  our  earnest  and  pa- 
tient thought. 

2.  We  sometimes  have  to  preach  without  having 
had  opportunity  to  prepare  a  sermon  for  the  occasion. 
The  call  is  unexpected,  but  our  duty  to  meet  it  is  plain  • 
and  if  indifference,  or  timidity,  or  a  too  scrupulous 
respect  to  reputation,  do  not  hinder — if  the  love  of 
Christ  and  of  souls  be  the  strongest  impulse  of  our 
ministry — we  shall  in  a  few  moments,  be  in  the  pulpit, 

(131) 


132  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

delivering  a  discourse,  not  from  a  manuscript  or  mem- 
oiy,  but  extempore,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word. 
"We  should  not  be  backward  to  improve  these  emer- 
gent, out  of  season,  occasions.  They  are  probably 
among  our  best  opportunities  of  doing  good  ;  and  the 
sudden  demands  now  made  upon  us,  may  not  be  more 
extraordinary  than  the  excellence  of  our  preaching, 
if  we  meet  them  bravely  and  promptly.  Perhaps,  after 
our  most  elaborate  preparations,  we  have  never 
preached  better  than  we  shall  preach  now.  We  may 
outdo  ourselves.  We  may  have  very  unwonted  if  not 
supernatural  ability  for  our  work.  Our  speaking  may 
be  less  our  own  than  that  of  the  Spirit  of  our  Father 
speaking  in  us.  We  know  not  what  unusual  and  won- 
derful experiences  of  Divine  aid,  what  depths  and 
heights  of  spiritual  insight  and  feeling,  what  surpris- 
ing enlargements  of  thought  and  expression,  what 
special  advantages  for  doing  and  getting  infinite  good 
we  might  resign,  by  declining  to  meet  these  abrupt 
calls  to  testify  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God. 

3.  It  is  the  high  and  singular  distinction  of  Preach- 
ing or  spiritual  eloquence — and  this  is  our  chief  guide 
in  the  inquiry  we  are  pursuing — that  the  supreme  and 

DOMINATING  PART  IN  IT,  BELONGS  TO  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

In  the  apostles,  and  other  primitive  ministers,  nay, 
even  in  our  Divine  Master  Himself,  the  sufficiency  for 
preaching  was  from  a  special  unction  and  co-operation 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.*  In  reproducing  the  inspired 
word  by  preaching,  there  is,  as  there  was  pre-eminently 

*  Luke  iv.  18,  19.  Compare  verses  i.  14,  and  Acts  i.  2  ;  1  Pet. 
i.  12  ;  1  Cor.  ii.  13  ;  Acts  i.  8,  ii.  4.  vii.  55,  xi.  24. 


FOR  PREACHING.  133 

in  the  first  inditing  of  that  word,  a  Divine-Human 
agency,  in  which  as  it  was,  in  the  higher  case  also,  the 
Human  is  wholly  subordinate  and  subservient  to  the 
Divine.    The  man  in  preaching  is  but  an  organ,  though 
a  living,  free,  self-active  organ,  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who 
dwells  and  works  within  him  to  make  him  competent 
for  what  he  does.   The  part  of  the  Spirit  in  preaching 
is  essentially  different,  and  never  to  be  undistinguished 
from  that  which  he  performs  in  original  inspiration  ; 
but  it  is  special  and  paramount ;  the  preacher  can  do 
nothing  as  he  ought,  if  he  be  left  to  himself.    "  We  are 
not  sufficient  of   ourselves,"    said    a  representative 
preacher,  "  to  think  anything  as  of  ourselves."    It  is 
denying  the  substantive  difference  between  preaching 
and  natural  eloquence  to  make  the  former  the  product, 
or  a  possible  achievement,  of  merely  human  capabili- 
ties.    There  is,  it  is  true,  nothing  in  the  structure  of 
a  sermon  which  is  not  referable  to  the  human  powers, 
as  the  directly  producing  cause  ;  but  a  true  sermon, 
is  never  produced  by  these  powers  of  themselves  ;  it 
comes  from  an  exercise  of  them,  originated,  sustained 
and  made  adequate  to  its  result,  by  a  distinctive  and 
special  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     Preaching,  the 
kind  of  discourse  which  God  requires  as  the  fit  medium 
and  vehicle  of  His  spiritual  power,  is  human,  and  yet 
not  simply  natural  eloquence  ;  the  manner  as  well  as 
the  matter,  the  very  diction  of  it  is  spiritual :  "  Which 
things  we  speak  not  in   words  which  man's  wisdom 
teacheth,  but  which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth,  combin- 
ing spiritual  things  with  spiritual  ivordsr     My  speech 
*  See  Calvin,  Beza,   and    Hodge,   in   loc.      The   apostle  dis- 


134  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

and  ni)r  preaching  was  not  "with  enticing  words  of 
man's  wisdom,  but  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and 
of  power."  A  true  preacher  is  a  spiritual  man;  the 
natural  man  has  no  perception  of  the  things  of  the 
Spirit,  the  material  of  preaching  ;  he  may  have  notions 
of  these  things  and  if  he  be  an  eloquent  speaker,  he 
may  discourse  on  them  eloquently ;  but  he  can  make 
no  spiritual  discourse  ;  this  requires  more  than  notions 
or  forms  of  the   understanding ;   it  is  from  spiritual 

tinguishes,  (v.  12,)  between  revelation  and  spiritual  knowledge  of 
the  things  revealed  ;  and  here,  speaking  of  the  expression  of 
these  things  in  preaching,  he  says  that  this  also  was  of  the 
Spirit.  He  does  not  mean  that  his  language  in  preaching  was 
dictated  to  him  directly,  as  if  he  had  been  no  more  than  an 
amanuensis.  His  contrasting  the  teaching  of  words  by  the  Spir- 
it, with  the  teaching  of  words  by  man's  wisdom  shows  this. 
Man's  wisdom  teaches  the  use  of  language  not  by  dictating 
words  to  us,  but  by  giving  us  through  intellectual  discipline  and 
culture,  the  command  of  this  wisdom's  words  :  the  principle  of 
contrast  suggests  a  parallel  method,  in  the  Spirit's  teaching,  as 
to  words.  The  words  taught  by  him  in  this  way,  are  no  less 
from  him,  than  the  words  of  which  one  has  the  use,  through  a 
liberal  education,  are  from  man's  wisdom.  If  we  are  enabled  to 
speak  the  words  we  use  in  preaching  no  otherwise  than  through 
subjective  preceptions  and  apprehensions,  imparted  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Spirit ;  if  through  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  we  ac- 
commodate the  words  to  the  subject,  so  that,  "  as  the  things  we 
teach  are  spiritual,  our  mode  of  teaching  them  is  in  like  manner 
spiritual,"  it  is  strictly  proper  to  ascribe  the  language  we  use  to 
the  teaching  of  the  Spirit.  In  a  true  sense  he  gives  us  this  lan- 
guage though  he  does  not  pronounce  it  to  our  ear.  But  the  apos. 
tie  himself  explains  what  he  means  by  the  Spirit's  teaching  him 
words,  in  the  expression  before  us :  "  Combining  spiritual  things 
with  spiritual  words."  His  preaching,  both  as  to  matter  and 
expression,  was  different  from  ours  in  that  it  was  in  both  these 
respects,  infallible  ;  but  ours  also  should  in  all  respects  be  spir- 
itual, or  of  the  special  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


FOR  PREACHING.  135 

discernment  of  the  infinite  things  themselves.  Preach- 
ing prc-supposcs  intellectual  knowledge,  but  this 
knowledge,  though  one  of  the  conditions  of  preaching, 
is  not  its  direct  producer  ;  it  comes  from  "  a  sense  of 
the  divine  excellency  of  the  things  of  the  Spirit  and  a 
conviction  of  the  truth  and  reality  of  them,  thence 
arising."-  There  is  the  same  essential  difference  be- 
tween preaching  and  unspiritual  eloquence,  that  there 
is  between  spiritual  and  natural  life  ;  only,  as  the 
exercises  of  spiritual  life  in  preaching  are,  from  the 
nature  of  the  business,  highly  peculiar  and  unique, 
correspondently  so  is  preaching  itself,  the  sum  and  the 
name  of  these  exercises. 

4.  We  see,  then,  what  a  preacher  is  about  when  he 
is  preparing  a  sermon.  We  have  before  us  the  sort 
of  discourse  he  has  set  himself  to  construct.  A  dif- 
ferent sort  will  not,  cannot  come  from  an  operation  in 
which  the  Spirit  has  the  causal  influence.  Unspiritual 
discourse  is  neither  from  Him,  nor  will  He  take  it  as  a 
fit  instrument  to  work  by,  in  effecting  His  proper  pur- 
pose. He  may,  indeed,  in  some  way  make  use  of  it. 
He  knows  how  to  use,  He  knows  how  to  serve  Himself 
of  material  uncongenial,  and  antagonistic  to  His  pur- 
pose. Through  His  sovereign  wisdom  and  grace  He 
may  turn  an  unspiritual  sermon  into  an  occasion  of 
giving  spiritual  life.  As  by  touching  the  dry  bones 
of  a  prophet,  the  dead  body  of  a  man  was  once  rean- 
imated, it  is  not  incredible  that  the  Spirit  may  some- 
times quicken  dead  souls  into  life,  under  preaching,  so 
called,  which  has  no  soul-quickening  virtue  in  itself. 
*  Edwards  on  the  Reality  of  Spiritual  Light. 


136  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

But  as  He  does  not  produce,  so  He  never  authenticates 
or  approves,  such  discourse.  However  orthodox  and 
eloquent  it  may  be,  it  is  not  according  to  His  mind, 
it  is  not  hoinogeneal  with  the  Divine  nature ;  its  ten- 
dency is  not  spiritual ;  and  He  seldom  attends  it,  in 
any  way,  with  His  effectual  agency.  The  sermons  He 
is  most  pleased  with  are  such  as  approximate  most 
nearly  to  His  own  preaching  in  the  oracles  of  God. 
In  manner  and  spirit,  as  well  as  in  matter,  the  Bible 
is  the  pattern,  the  exemplar  to  the  pulpit.  Second- 
hand preaching  is  without  the  infallible  inspiration 
which  dictated  the  Scripture  ;  but  the  mind  and  life 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  permeate  this  preaching  also.  A 
true  sermon  is  of  the  same  temper  and  purpose  with 
the  Bible  ;  the  same  in  assimilation  with  the  spirit- 
uality of  God  ;  the  same  in  inconsistence  with  evil 
and  vanity  ;  the  same  in  attractiveness  to  Christ  and 
heaven  ;  the  same  in  antagonism  to  whatever  imperils 
the  soul  and  the  immortality  of  man.  No  human 
preaching  is  perfect ;  but  a  true  preacher  strives  after 
perfection,  and  the  Bible  is  his  standard. 

5.  The  supremacy  of  the  Spirit's  agency  requires 
the  preacher,  not  the  less,  but  the  moke,  to  attend 
to  his  part  of  the  work.  Though  the  sermon  is, 
at  last,  the  result  of  two  combined  agencies,  the 
agencies  have  not  the  same  direct  purpose.  That  of 
the  Spirit  is  not  the  sermon,  but  the  preparation  of 
the  preacher.  The  Divine-Human  in  preaching  is  not, 
as  to  its  ultimate  product,  altogether  what  it  is  in 
Scripture.  In  Scripture  the  Human  is  never  the  in- 
strument of  error  ;  in  preaching,  as  we  just  now  said, 


FOB  PREACHING.  137 

the  liberty  of  man  is  not  secured  against  abuse.  The 
preacher,  though  a  spiritual,  is  far  from  being  a  per- 
fect man.  His  sermon,  though  made  with  the  Spirit's 
co-operation,  is  his  own  immediate  work,  the  direct 
fruit  of  his  own  labor.  The  Spirit  does  but  help 
him  to  help  himself;  his  freedom  is  not  abridged  ;  he 
has  special  assistance  from  the  Spirit,  but  he  may  ne- 
glect and  frustrate  it.  By  inattention,  by  indolence, 
by  haste,  by  self-wisdom,  by  ambition,  by  aspiring 
after  eminence  in  his  work,  he  may  cross  and  thwart 
the  working  of  the  Spirit  within  him.  Even  pro- 
phetic inspiration  left  entiro  liberty  to  the  will  of  the 
prophet.  "  The  spirit  of  the  prophets  was  subject  to 
the  prophets."  More  than  once  the  anger  of  the  Lord 
was  kindled  against  Moses  himself.  No  man  should 
guard  himself  more  watchfully  against  the  neglect  or 
perversion  of  advantages,  than  he  in  whom  the  Spirit 
is  working  with  reference  to  his  having  ability  in 
preparing  to  preach.  Paul  has  left  all  preachers  an 
example  as  to  their  method  and  measure,  in  the  entire 
exercise  of  their  ministry  :  "Whereunto  I  labor,  striv- 
ing according  to  his  working,  who  worketh  in  me 
mightily."* 

6.  The  nature  of  preaching  as  spiritual  work — 
work  not  to  be  done  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
Spirit — acquaints  us  with  the  part  which  prayee  has 
in  preparing  for  it.  Self-evidently,  prayer,  as  a 
means,  is  required  before  every  other,  and  is,  virtu- 
ally at  least,  continued  and  ascendant  in  every  other. 
If  a  spiritual  discourse  is  not  a  possible  achievement 
*  Col.  5.  29. 


138  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

of  natural  power,  to  attempt  one  independently  of  the 
aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit  were  a  plain  absurdity  ;  and 
since  the  Spirit  is  present  to  impart  His  aid,  the  at- 
tempt were  impious,  an  insult  to  the  Infinite  Spirit,  as 
well  as  absurd.  But  not  without  intentional  and  con- 
scious effort  on  the  preacher's  part,  directed  to  that 
end,  is  the  power  of  the  Spirit  developed  in  congenial 
concurrence  with  his  activity.  The  Divine  does  not 
concur  with  the  Human  in  this  free  and  holy  opera- 
tion, but  at  the  urgent  and  continued  exertion  of  the 
Human.  Even  in  the  ordinary  work  of  sanctification. 
in  which  also  the  Divine  and  Human  are  combined* 
this  is  the  case  ;  and  may  it  be  otherwise  in  this  high 
and  special  work  of  holy  power  ?  May  a  man  make 
a  sermon,  without  consciously  looking  to  the  Spirit 
and  seeking  His  assistance,  when,  without  doing  this, 
he  cannot  read  the  Scriptures,  or  do  aught  else  as  he 
should?  It  is  an  intuition  of  conscience  that  a 
preacher  is  required,  by  the  business  of  his  vocation, 
to  be,  above  others,  a  man  of  prayer.  It  was  but 
natural,  the  dictate  of  common  reason,  that  the  apos- 
tles should  think  of  instituting  a  new  office  in  the 
Church  when  they  saw  that  otherwise  they  would  be 
hindered  in  giving  themselves  to  prayer  and  the 
ministry  of  the  word.  And  was  it  with  no  reference 
to  what  was  needful  to  ordinary  preachers,  that  the 
pre-eminence  of  their  Master  and  Lord,  in  connecting 
the  practice  of  prayer  with  the  exercise  of  His  minis- 
try, has  been  so  particularly  and  pointedly  recorded 
by  the  evangelists  ?  What  a  lesson  is  it  to  common 
*  Phil.  ii.  12, 13. 


FOR  PREACHING.  139 

preachers,   as    to    the    place    they    should    give    to 
prayer  in  their  plan  of  labor,  that  the  greatest  of  all 
the  inspired  ministers  of  Christ,  in  nearly  all  his  epis- 
tles, makes  specific  mention  of  his  own  habit  in  regard 
to  prayer  ;*  and  asks  so  fervently  the  prayers  of  the 
Church  ;t  and  particularly,  that  they  would  pray  that 
God  would  assist  him  in  the  work  of  preaching.% 
Is  it  surprising  that  the  great  models  of  the  pulpit 
had  their  fellowship  with  their  Lord  and  His  chief 
apostle  in   this  spiritual  habit?    that  Luther   gave 
many  of  his  best  hours  every  day  to  earnest  wrestling 
with  God  ;  showing  thus  his  faith  in  his  own  motto 
(bene  orasse,  bene  studuisse) ;   and  doubtless  how  he 
came  to  adopt  it  as  his  motto  ?  that  Whitfield's  prepa- 
rations were  chiefly  made  on  his  knees  at  the  mercy- 
seat  ?  that  the  main  business  of  Bruce  in  preparation 
was  the  elevation  of  his  heart  into  a  holy  and  rever- 
ential frame,  and  in  pouring  it  out  before  God  in 
wrestling  prayer  ?      Is  it  not  manifest  that  this,  in 
truth,  must  be  the  main  business  with  every  preacher 
who  really  regards  preaching  as  an  impossibility  to 
man  without  aid  from  above?     He  will,  of  course, 
give  to  the  work,  study,  invention,  the  closest  applica- 
tion of  his  mind,  the  highest  use  of  his  talent,  learn- 
ing, culture  ;  but  in  all,  and  more  than  all,  he  will  be 
praying  in  spirit  with   all  prayer  and  supplication, 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  may  not  cease  to  work  mightily 
within  him,  illuminating,  sanctifying,  strengthening 

*  1  Thess.  iii.  10  ;  Col.  i  3  ;  Philip  i.  4  ;  Rom.  i.  19  ;  Eph.  i.  16  ; 
2  Tim.  i.  3  ;  Phil.  iv. 
f  Rom.  xv.  30 ;  2  Cor.  i.  2.  \  Eph.  vi.  14;  1  Thess.  v.  25, 


140  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

directing  the  exercise  of  his  faculties,  until  he  has 
completed  his  preparation. 

7.  Advancing  further  with  our  inquiry,  we  come  at 
once  to  the  question  :  Whether  writing  is  to  be 
included  in  the  work?  Is  composition  essential 
to  the  best  preparation?  In  the  absolute  sense, 
no  ;  but  yes,  yes,  with  emphasis,  relatively  to  general 
proficiency.  In  some  instances  we  may  prepare  bet- 
ter without  than  with  writing  ;  we  sometimes  preach 
better  when  we  have  no  manuscript,  not  even  a  brief; 
but,  on  the  whole,  the  highest  success  in  preparing 
requires  the  use  of  the  pen.  "  The  pen  is  the  best, 
the  most  excellent  former  and  director  of  the  tongue. 
However  long  a  person  may  practice  spontaneous 
elocution,  he  can  never  command  admiration  without 
practice  in  writing  ;  and  the  man  who  after  using  his 
pen  shall  come  to  the  bar,  will  carry  along  with  him 
this  advantage,  that  though  he  shall  speak  without 
previous  meditation,  yet  what  he  will  deliver  will 
have  the  air  of  correct  composition  ;  and  further,  if 
at  any  time  he  shall  use  the  assistance  of  notes,  as 
soon  as  he  lays  them  aside  the  remaining  part  of  his 
speech  will  be  of  a  piece  with  the  preceding.  As  a 
boat  under  sail,  though  the  rowers  suspend  their 
efforts,  the  vessel  still  moves  in  the  same  direction  as 
when  impelled  by  the  impulse  of  the  oars  ;  so  in  a 
continued  discourse,  when  no  longer  supplied  with 
notes,  yet  the  remaining  part  proceeds  in  the  same 
strain,  by  the  resemblance  and  strength  acquired  from 
composition."*  What  is  here  so  well  said,  has  a 
*  Cicero. 


FOB  PREACHING.  141 

special  claim  to  the  attention  of  the  ministers  of  the 
Word.  The  discourse  of  the  pulpit,  more  than  all 
other  public  speaking,  ought  to  be  chaste  in  style  and 
diction,  as  well  as  of  masculine  strength  and  force. 
The  subject  matter  of  it,  the  excellence  and  nobleness 
of  its  purpose,  the  criticism  it  has  to  meet,  and,  let  it 
be  added  impressively,  its  great  claim  as  of  Divine- 
Human  texture,  demand  for  it,  not  only  an  absolute 
exemption  from  whatever  is  coarse,  commonplace,  pro- 
vincial, but  the  highest  classical  simplicity  and  purity. 
What  an  indignity  were  it,  to  use  the  striking  image 
of  Foster,  "  to  impose  the  guise  of  a  cramped,  formal, 
ecclesiastic  on  what  is  destined  for  a  universal  mon- 
arch." Moreover,  the  advance  of  society  heightens 
the  duty  of  the  pulpit,  to  be  in  the  advance,  as  an 
instrument  of  popular  refinement  and  culture  in  all 
respects,  and  especially  in  the  use  of  language,  which 
besides  being  a  mark  of  cultivation  has  no  remote  con- 
nection with  moral  improvement.  The  times  require 
of  the  pulpit  a  higher  order  of  discourse.  One  of  the 
first  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  age,  tells  us  :  "  It  is 
necessary  at  the  present  day,  in  order  to  banish  from 
the  threshold  of  conscience,  prejudices  which  to  cer- 
tain minds  of  a  fastidious  character,  may  be  a  lasting 
hindrance,  that  evangelical  discourse  should  not  be 
unpolished  and  rude  ;  it  is  necessary  that,  when  com- 
pared with  other  products  of  the  understanding,  it 
should  not  appear  chargeable  with  any  kind  of  infe- 
riority, and  that  no  one  should  have  it  to  say,  with 
any  appearance  of  reason,  that  it  is  only  the  ears  of 
the  vulgar  of  which  it  has  the  command.     And  let  it 


142  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

not  be  imagined  that  the  merit  of  an  elaborate  com- 
position may  be  anywhere  lo?t  from  its  not  being 
everywhere  appreciated.  In  all  minds  true  excellence 
and  true  beauty  find  a  point  in  which  they  are  felt. 
Their  intimate  congeniality  with  all  the  wants  of  the 
soul,  enable  them  at  length  to  penetrate  it.  The  dis- 
cernment of  just  expressions  and  silent  forms  gradu- 
ally becomes  an  instinct  with  the  multitude  ;  and  the 
preacher's  care  as  to  the  logic  of  his  composition,  and 
the  texture  of  his  language,  gives  him  a  new  authority 
over  the  people,  whereby  he  becomes  not  only  their 
spiritual  guide,  but,  in  many  respects,  their  law-giver."* 

8.  It  would  then,  doubtless,  be  perilous  to  the  credit 
and  honor  of  preaching,  to  forbear  writing  as  a  means 
of  preparing  for  the  pulpit.  Few,  even  of  educated 
preachers,  men  of  literary  talent,  could  preach  no  other 
than  unwritten  sermons,  without  incurring  blemishes 
of  elocution,  which  might  seriously  impair  their  gen- 
eral influence  as  public  speakers.  They  would  be  in 
danger  of  becoming  more  or  less  inexact,  repetitious, 
disorderly,  if  not  even  slovenly,  not  only  in  diction, 
but  in  thinking  and  reasoning  also.  This  danger  has 
been  actualized  in  too  many  examples. 

9.  But  it  should  be  added,  on  the  other  hand,  and 
with  strong  accent,  that  if  writing  for  the  pulpit  be 
important,  not  less  so  ake  the  capacity  and  the 
habit  of  preparation  without  WRITING.  Generally, 
indeed,  this  latter  mode  of  preparation  is  a  condition 
of  the  highest  success  in  the  other  mode.  Better  that 
a  preacher  should  write  no  sermons  than  compose  as 

*  Vinet's  Installation  Discourse. 


FOR  PREACHING.  143 

many  as  he  will  probably  have  to  preach.  Of  three 
sermons  a  week,  the  least  number  usually  required,  he 
would  hardly  have  time  for  more  than  the  bare  hand- 
writing. Unless  he  has  uncommon  facility  of  compo- 
sition, he  cannot  write  well,  more  than  one  at  the 
utmost.  And  the  utility  of  the  habit  of  composition 
depends  on  the  care  given  to  the  work.  Better  that 
one  should  do  all  his  preaching  extemporaneously, 
than  practise  no  other  than  negligent,  hasty,  extempo- 
raneous writing.  But  what  is  a  preacher's  resource, 
if,  having  three  sermons  to  preach,  he  write  only  one  ? 
Either,  he  must  use  other  men's  sermons,  or  repeat  his 
own,  or  prepare  to  preach  without  writing.  The  first, 
however  allowable,  elsewhere,  is  inadmissible  with  us.; 
the  second,  after  a  while  will  make  his  preaching  in 
sipid  to  his  hearers,  as  well  as  next  to  intolerable  to 
himself.  Without  great  disadvantage  and  loss  of 
influence,  he  cannot  repeat  to  his  stated  hearers,  more 
than  once  or  twice,  discourses  which  they  will  remem- 
ber— "  What  eloquence  is  that  of  a  man  whose  hearer 
knows  beforehand  all  his  expressions,  and  his  moving 
appeals  ?  A  likely  way  indeed,  to  surprise,  to  aston- 
ish, to  soften,  to  convince,  to  persuade  men !  A 
strange  method  of  concealing  art  and  letting  nature 
speak !  For  my  part,  I  say  that  all  this  offends  me. 
What !  shall  a  steward  of  the  mysteries  of  God,  be  an 
idle  declaimer,  jealous  of  his  reputation,  and  ambitious 
of  vain  pomp  ?  Shall  he  not  venture  to  speak  of  God 
to  his  people,  without  having  arranged  all  his  words, 
and  learned  like  a  school  boy  his  lesson  by  heart?"* 
*  Fenelon. 


144  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

The  third  is  the  only  remaining  means  ;  he  must  pre- 
pare to  preach  without  writing.  Plagiarism  and  the 
too  oft  repetition  of  the  same  discourse  apart,  extem- 
poraneous preaching  would  seem  to  be  a  necessity. 

10.  And  this  means,  which  there  appears  to  bo 
hardly  any  way  of  dispensing  with,  has  its  own  very 
high  recommendation.  Along  with  the  other,  and  in 
larger  measure  than  that  can  well  have,  it  enhances. 
on  the  whole,  the  utility  of  a  protracted  course  of 
preaching.  Indeed,  valuable  as  well  written  discourses 
are  in  other  respects,  their  chief  advantage,  ultimately, 
both  to  the  preacher  and  his  hearers,  is  from  the  in- 
fluence they  have  on  the  preparation  to  preach  extem- 
poraneously. Certain  it  is,  that  the  ideal  of  excellence 
in  preaching,  is  unattainable  when  the  delivery  is  from 
full  notes.*  Extemporizing  in  itself  is  the  best  way 
of  speaking,  the  natural  way,  the  only  speaking  in- 
deed, in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.f  Each  of  the 
other  ways,  reading,  reciting,  reproducing  from  a  man- 
uscript, has  somewhat  in  it,  which  nature  would  hardly 
suggest  or  allow  in  such  an  occupation  as  that  of  ad- 
dressing, speaking  to,  an  assembly.^  Neither  of  them 
is  often  if  ever  used,  in  other  kinds  of  eloquence.  Does 
the  singularity  of  the  pulpit  in  using  them  so  freely  as 
it  has  done,  admit  of  an  apology?     A  great  master  in 

*  "  To  read  in  a  manuscript  book  as  our  clergy  now  do,  is  not 
to  preach  at  all.  Preach  out  of  a  book  if  you  must,  but  do  not 
read  in  it  or  even  from  it.  A  read  sermon  of  twenty  minutes  will 
seem  longer  to  the  hearers  than  a  free  discourse  of  an  hour." — 
Coleridge. 

f  Whately's  Rhetoric. 

\  "  Nunquam  aliud  natura,  aliud  sapientia  dicit." — Juvenal. 


FOR  PREACHING.  145 

the  ministry  of  the  word  has  said  :  "  The  people  must 
be  taught  in  a  manner  that  they  may  be  inwardly  con- 
vinced, and  made  to  feel  the  truth  of  what  the  apostle 
says,  that  '  the  word  of  God  is  a  two-edged  sword, 
piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  the  soul  and 
spirit,  the  joints  and  marrow,  and  is  a  disccrner  of  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart."  There  is  too  little 
of  living  preaching  in  your  kingdom  (England)  ;  ser- 
mons there  have  been  mostly  read  or  recited.  True 
and  faithful  servants  of  God  ought  not  to  wish  to 
shine  in  the  ornaments  of  rhetoric,  or  effect  great 
things  thereby;  but  the  Spirit  of  God  should  be 
echoed  by  their  voice,  and  so  give  birth  to  virtue. 
No  possible  danger  must  be  permitted  to  abridge  the  lib- 
erty of  the  Spirit  of  God,  or  prevent  his  free  course 
among  those  he.  has  adorned  with  his  graces  for  the  edi- 
fying of  the  Church."* 

11.  This  last  remark  of  Calvin  should  be  as  a  loud 
warning  to  preachers,  when  writing  discourses  for  the 
pulpit.  Both  in  preparing  and  preaching  from  manu- 
scripts, there  is  special  danger  of  abridging  the  lib- 
erty of  the  Spirit,  in  His  part  of  the  work.  From 
neither,  as  we  have  before  insisted,  is  His  peculiar 
agency  to  be  for  a  moment  abstracted.  Writing  is  the 
preacher's  business  ;  he  puts  himself  in  it,  if  he  does  it 
in  earnest  ;  and  he  is  very  apt,  from  the  nature  of  the 
operation,  to  be  in  it  by  himself  and  to  do  it  in  too 
exclusive  self  reliance  ;  and  when  he  has  done  it,  to 
restrict  himself  to  what  he  has  written,  ignoring  the 
Spirit's  province  and   right,  in    the   actual  work  of 

*  Letter  of  John  Calvin  to  Somerset. 


146  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

preaching,  even  to  the  end.  He  is  in  peril  of  doing 
this  in  the  other  way  of  preaching  also  ;  but  his  lia- 
bility to  it  is  special,  when  he  uses  a  completely  writ- 
ten discourse.  And  he  knows  not  what  his  preaching 
may  lose  if  he  does  abridge  the  Spirit's  liberty  in  it. 
By  far  the  best  part  of  preaching  is  often  from  the  un- 
anticipated assistances  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  "The 
salient  points  of  Whitfield's  oratory,  were  not  prepar- 
ed passages  ;  they  were  bursts  of  passion,  like  the  jets 
of  a  geyser  when  the  spring  is  in  full  play."*  "  The 
degree,"  says  Thomas  Scott,  "  in  which  after  the  most 
careful  preparation  for  the  pulpit,  new  thoughts,  new 
arguments,  animated  addresses  often  flow  into  my 
mind,  while  speaking  to  the  congregation  on  very  com- 
mon subjects,  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  was  quite  another 
man,  than  when  poring  over  them  in  my  study."  A 
preacher,  whom  we  know,  has  related  of  himself,  that 
when  discoursing  from  Heb.  xi.  5,  he  had  such  a  sense 
given  to  him  at  the  moment,  of  the  patriarch's  privi- 
lege there  mentioned  ("  before  his  translation  he  had 
the  testimony  that  he  pleased  God,")  that  he  was  en- 
abled to  enlarge  on  it,  nearly  half  an  hour,  in  an 
almost  rapture,  which  made  him  nearly  unconscious 
of  what  he  was  doing  or  where  he  was,  yet  as  he  gath- 
ered from  a  reporter,  without  inflation  of  style,  or  any 
kind  of  excess  ;  making  discourse,  he  believed,  never 
equalled  by  himself,  before  or  afterwards.  There 
have  been  instances  yet  more  remarkable — instances 
wherein  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  exercise  of  His  sover- 
eign right  in  the  business  of  the  pulpit,  has  displaced 

*  Southey. 


FOR  PREACHING.  147 

altogether  the  preacher's  precomposed  sermon,  by  one 
spontaneously  preached  by  him  from  the  same,  or  an- 
other text.  "The  Rev.  Dr.  Dickson,  handed  me*  on 
Saturday  evening,  his  sermon  for  Sabbath  morning,  to 
read,  and  I  went  to  church  expecting  to  hear  him 
preach  it :  He  took  the  same  text,  but  not  one  idea 
of  what  he  had  written  and  I  read,  did  he  utter.  At 
dinner,  lie  asked,  if  I  had  observed  anything  at  church. 
Yes.  What  was  it?  Why,  sir,  you  took  your  Satur- 
day evening  text,  but  you  uttered  not  one  idea  on  it 
you  had  written  to  preach.  I  thought  you  would  no- 
tice it.  I  got  such  a  new  and  precious  view  of  my 
text,  when  in  prayer,  that  I  put  my  sermon  in  the 
Bible  and  spoke  just  as  I  saw  and  felt."  It  would  be 
presumptuous  hastily  to  refer  sudden  pulpit  experi- 
ences to  the  direct  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  it 
may  be  no  less  so  to  determine  arbitrarily  that  they  are 
not  from  Him  :  they  may  be  from  Him  ;  it  is  within 
His  province  to  give  them  ;  and  no  possible  danger 
must  be  permitted  to  abridge  His  liberty. 

12. "The  very  idea  of  extemporizing,  supposes  that 

THE   WORDS    OF    THE    DISCOURSE    ARE   UNPREMEDITATED. 

In  this  consists  the  difference  between  the  two  meth- 
ods of  preaching.  The  matter  of  an  extemporaneous 
sermon  should  be  as  well  prepared  as  that  of  one 
which  is  written  ;  excepting  what  may  be  supplied  by 
a  sudden  movement  of  the  Spirit,  the  whole  ought  to 
be  premeditated  and  predisposed.  The  only  thing  to 
be  excepted  is  the  language  ;  and  this  precisely,  the 

*  We  forget  the  reporter's    name,   but   the   anecdote   is   au- 
thentic. 


148  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

omission  of  the  language,  is  what  the  term  extempora- 
neous, when  applied  to  preaching,  signifies.  The  words 
are  improvised  ;  they  come  for  the  first  time  in  the  act 
of  speaking.  Preparation  to  preach  extempore  is 
sometimes  partial ;  that  is  to  say,  certain  parts  of  the 
discourse,  definition,  division,  passages  requiring  spe- 
cial exactness,  color  and  grace  of  expression,  are  writ- 
ten, or  words  to  express  them  fittingly  premeditated 
at  least.  But  in  so  far  as  these  parts  are  concerned, 
the  discourse  is  not  extemporaneous.  To  prepare  to 
preach  extempore,  is  to  prepare  without  choosing  or 
thinking  of  words,  previous  to  the  delivery  of  the  dis- 
course. The  words  spring  into  being  at  the  exigence 
and  command  of  the  mind,  in  the  business  of  speaking  ; 
they  are  born  in  the  pulpit,  of  the  nisus  and  exercises 
of  thought :  and  it  is  best  for  the  discourse  that  they 
should  there  and  thus  originate  ;  any  specific  provision 
for  them  would  require  labor,  much  better  given  to 
the  preparation  of  the  matter.  There  is  no  cause 
whatever  for  anxiety  concerning  them.  If  the  preach- 
er be  not  disqualified  in  some  other  respect,  he  may 
confidently  and  safely  rely  on  being  supplied  with  the 
language  he  will  need.  He  may  not  have  at  command 
the  niceties,  and  delicate  coloring  of  expression,  which 
he  might  introduce  into  an  elaborate  composition  ;  but 
these  are  not  essential  to  good  discourse,  and  perhaps 
they  are  not  desirable.  "  Eloquence  requires  a  more 
manly  temper,  and  if  its  whole  body  be  sound  and  vig- 
orous, it  is  quite  regardless  of  the  nicety  of  paring  the 
nails,  and  adjusting  the  hair."*     Let  the  words  then 

*  Quintilian. 


FOR  PREACHING.  149 

be  left  to  themselves  :  So  the  best  extemporizers  ad- 
vise. "  Digest  well  3*0111-  subject,  but  be  not  careful  to 
choose  your  words  previous  1o  your  delivery;  follow 
out  the  idea  with  such  language  as  may  offer  at  the 
moment.""  "  If  any  words  of  mine  could  be  needed 
to  reinforce  the  opinion  of  the  most  enchanting  speak- 
er I  ever  heard,  I  should  employ  them  in  pressing  on 
your  mind,  the  counsel  not  to  prepare  your  words. 
Certain  preachers  by  a  powerful  constraining  disci- 
pline, have  acquired  the  faculty  of  mentally  rehearsing 
the  entire  discourse  they  were  to  deliver,  with  almost 
the  precise  language.  This  is  manifestly  no  more  ex- 
temporaneous preaching  than  if  they  had  written  down 
every  word  in  a  book.  But  if  you  would  avail  your- 
self of  the  plastic  power  of  excitement  in  a  great  as- 
sembly, to  create  for  the  gushing  thought,  a  word  of 
fitting  diction,  you  will  not  spend  a  moment  on  the 
words.  Generally  speaking,  the  best  possible  word  is 
one  which  is  born  of  the  thought  in  the  presence  of  the 
assembly,  "t 

13.  Should  preparation  to  preach  extempore  include 
the  preparation  of  a  programme  or  brief  to  serve  as 
a  mnemonic  in  the  PULriT  ?  Not  ordinarily,  for  the 
generality  of  the  preachers.  Preachers  who  are  not 
afraid  to  trust  their  memories,  find  more  freedom  in 
delivery,  when  they  have  no  paper  before  them  ;  there 
is  an  interruption  of  the  flow  and  continuity  of  utter- 
ance in  casting  the  eyes  often  on  a  brief.  Much  more 
easy  and  agreeable  is  the  manner  of  an  orator,  who, 
standing  erect  before  his  bearers  in  perfect  independ- 
*  Summerfield.  \  Dr.  J.  W.  Alexander. 


150  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

ence  of  aid  from  notes,  completes  the  delivery  of 
liis  speech.  This  was  the  manner  of  the  most  consum- 
mate extemporaneous  preacher  to  whom  we  have  ever 
listened.*  It  is  strongly  recommended  by  other  mas- 
ters in  the  art.  "  If  you  press  me  to  say  which  is 
absolutely  the  best  practice,  in  regard  to  notes,  pro- 
perly so  called,  that  is  in  distinction  from  a  complete 
manuscript,  I  unhesitatingly  say,  use  none  /  carry  no 
scrap  of  writing  into  the  pulpit.  Let  your  scheme, 
with  all  its  branches  be  Avritten  on  your  mental  tablet. 
The  practice  will  be  invaluable.  I  know  a  preacher, 
about  my  own  age,  who  has  never  employed  a  note  of 
any  kind."f 

14.  The  reason  for  the  absence  of  notes,  is  more  de- 
cisive, generally,  against  introducing  prepared  para- 
graphs and  pages  into  an  extemporaneous  sermon.  The 
more  elaborately  they  are  written,  the  more  ornate 
and  exquisite  their  composition,  the  less  their  homoge- 
neity with  the  ordinary  strain  of  spontaneous,  unstud- 
ied elocution,  Indeed,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  hinder 
the  effect  of  direct  contrast  between  the  latter  and 
these  elaborate  appendages,  "  It  requires  the  practice 
of  years,  and  I  doubt  if  even  that  would  generally  suf- 
fice, to  dovetail  an  extemporaneous  paragraph  grace- 
fully into  a  written  sermon  ;  "J  and  to  inweave  a  writ- 
ten paragraph  into  an  extemporary  sermon,  would  be 
a  yet  harder  attempt.  One  may  be  assisted  by  the 
impulse  of  thought,  or  the  swell  of  emotion,  in  deliver- 

*  The  immediate  predecessor  of  Mr.  Barnes  in  Philadelphia. 

\  Dr.  J.  W  Alexander. 

%  Dr.  Alexander :  There  are  striking  exceptions  however. 


FOR  PREACHING.  151 

ing  a  written  discourse,  to  produce  an  extemporaneous 
paragraph  of  a  piece  with  the  composition  ;  there 
is  no  like  assistance  in  the  other  undertaking  ;  the  pas- 
sage in  this  is  from  the  natural  into  the  artistic,  from 
freedom  into  restraint,  from  warmth  into  comparative 
frigidity.  There  is  not,  however,  an  absolute  rule 
against  the  intermixture  of  written  with  unwritten 
language  in  the  same  discourse,  either  in  less  or  larger 
measure.  Some  preachers,  especially  in  treating  cer- 
tain subjects  extemporaneously,  have  used  liberally 
the  labor  of  the  pen  in  certain  places,  with  much  ad- 
vantage; the  general  heterogenousness  of  the  two 
kinds  of  elocution  is  nevertheless  undeniable.f 

f  Several  modes  of  learning  to  speak  well  extempore,  have  been 
recommended  by  different  writers.  The  best  mode,  according  to 
Lord  Brougham,  is  as  follows:  "  The  beginning  of  the  art  is  to 
acquire  the  habit  of  easy  speaking.  In  whatever  way  this  can  be 
had,  which  inclination  or  accident  will  generally  direct,  and  may 
be  safely  allowed  to  do,  it  must  be  had.  Differing  as  I  do  from  all 
other  doctors  in  rhetoric,  in  this  I  say  learn  to  speak  easily  and 
fluently,  as  well  and  sensibly  as  you  can,  no  doubt — but  at  any 
rate  learn  to  speak.  This  is  to  eloquence  or  good  public 
speaking,  what  being  able  to  talk  in  a  child,  is  to  good 
grammatical  speech.  It  is  the  requisite  foundation,  and  on  it  you 
must  build.  To  speak  easily,  ad  libitum,  to  be  able  to  say  what 
you  choose,  what  you  have  to  say — this  is  the  first  requisite,  to 
acquire  which,  everything  for  the  present  must  be  sacrificed. 
This  is  the  first  step ;  the  next  is  the  grand  one,  to  convert  this 
kind  of  easy  speaking  into  chaste  eloquence.  And  as  to  this, 
there  is  but  one  rule — to  set  daily  and  nightly  before  you  the 
Greek  Models."  But  is  this  really  the  only  means  ?  Should 
not  the  study  of  English  and  French  and  some  other  models — 
models  of  the  pulpit  especially — be  also  recommended  ?  Diligent 
word-study,  apart  from  all  models,  should,  we  think,  be  also  in- 
sisted on.  One's  vocabulary — the  number  and  character  of  the 
words  at  his  ready  command — should  be  constantly  husbanded 


152  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

15.  But  to  return  to  the  preparation  of  the  matter 
in  distinction  from  the  expression  of  an  extemporane- 
ous sermon :  This,  we  repeat,  is  the  same,  whether  the 
discourse  is  to  be  written  or  not.  The  only  difference 
is  in  the  composition.  There  is  the  same  analysis  of 
the  subject ;  the  same  invention  and  disposition  of 
materials  ;  the  same  array  of  arguments,  divisions,  and 
subdivisions  ;  the  same  working  up  of  the  every  thing 
into  one  compact  organism,  the  parts  set  together  in 
the  order  of  climax,  one  growing  out  of  another,  inter- 
fused, intensified,  concentrated,  secured  against  dissi- 
pation and  divergence  of  force  from  the  one  object  of 
the  work  ;  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other ;  noth- 
ing omitted  in  the  discourse,  which  is  to  be  extempor- 
ized, except  the  composition.  In  neither  case,  must 
the  preparation  be  permitted  to  overlook  or  abridge 
the  liberty  of  the  Spirit  in  the  preaching  of  the  dis- 
course ;  His  way  must  be  left  open  to  modify,  or  add  to 
the  matter,  if  He  please  to  do  so  ;  but  whatever  the 
Spirit's  course  may  be,  the  work  of  preparation  on  the 
preacher's  part  ought  to  be  complete  ;  as  much  so 
when  he  omits  as  when  he  performs  most  perfectly  the 
labor  of  composition.  "  The  sermon  must  be  well  and 
solidly  prepared,"  irrespective  of  possible  accessions  to 
it  from  sudden  impulses  or  communications  of  the 
Spirit. 

16.  With  different  preachers,  and  with  the  same 

preacher  at  different  times,  there  is  great  difference  as 

and  enriched.  In  connection  with  every  means,  and,  as  of  more 
importance  than  all,  the  pen  should  be  elaborately  used.  And, 
one  thing  more  we  earnestly  recommend,  namely,  the  Jiabit  of 
using  only  chaste  diction  in  common  conversation. 


FOR  PREACHING.  153 

tO    SPEED  AND    RAPIDITY  IN    THE    PREPARATION    OF    THE 

matter.  Sometimes  it  is  accomplished  with  a  celerity 
almost  equal  to  that  of  lightning.  "  There  belongs  to 
the  human  mind  a  peculiar  power  of  discerning  at  once 
the  entire  nature  of  a  subject  ;"*  it  is  given  to  the 
preacher  occasionally,  to  exercise  this  wonderful 
power  ;  with  the  inception  of  the  purpose  to  treat  his 
subject,  the  plan,  the  partes  and  sub-partcs,  and  the 
course  of  thought  to  the  end,  are  already  virtually  in 
his  possession  ;  the  preparation  is  completed  in  a  mo- 
ment. But  generally  its  movement  is  a  contrast  to 
this  electrical  s witness  ;  often  it  is  the  extreme  oppo- 
site. The  first  view  of  the  subject  is  commonly  con- 
fused, chaotic,  without  the  slightest  perception  of 
method  or  order  ;  a  process  of  intellectual  gestation  en- 
sues, including  deep,  intense,  protracted  thinking ; 
struggles  with  obscurity  and  confusion  ;  with  objec- 
tions, with  half-truths  and  indecisive  arguments,  with 
erroneous  or  false  prejudgments,  with  bad  or  imper- 
fect disposition,  with  disproportion,  disunity,  dishar- 
mony, complication,  in  organizing  the  material.  Such, 
for  the  most  part,  is  the  toil  of  preparation,  the  con- 
dition of  thoroughness  and  success  in  the  work. 

IT.  There  should  be  no  sparing  or  abatement  of 
pains  in  this  labor.  It  is  generally  the  all  in  all,  in 
extemporaneous  preaching.  The  character  of  the 
utterance  and  the  elocution,  the  merit  of  the  perform- 
ance, probably  depends  upon  it  With  few  exceptions, 
the  whole  is  done,  virtually,  when  this  is  done.  When 
the  discourse   is  written,  the    antecedent  plan   and 

*  Isaac  Tavlor. 


154  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

arrangement  of  the  matter  may  be  changed  and  perhaps 
improved  in  the  work  of  composition  :  not  so,  in  the 
delivery  of  an  extemporaneous  discourse.  The  deliv- 
ery now  is  generally  predetermined  by  the  character 
of  the  antecedent  labor.  It  is  as  the  preparation:  the 
preparation  makes  it.  Now  and  then,  it  maybe  other- 
wise by  some  happy  accident  ;  but  the  exception  con- 
firms the  rule,  which  virtually  includes  the  delivery 
itself  in  the  preparation  :  when  this  is  finished,  the 
preacher  by  examining  it,  may  anticipate  the  estima- 
tion of  his  pulpit  performance.  If  he  would  therefore 
be  sure  of  preaching  well,  he  should  be  sure  of  doing 
well  the  work  of  preparation.  He  ought  to  revise  and 
scrutinize  exactly  what  he  has  done,  whether  it  was  by 
the  rapid  or  the  slower  movement.  His  swift  prepar- 
ations, especially,  should  be  subjected  to  criticism. 
They  may  be  less  pleasing  to  him,  if  he  return  to  them 
after  a  day  or  an  hour  or  two  :  Perhaps  their  rapidity 
was  from  want  of  breadth  or  depth,  or  gravity  of 
thought :  But  his  most  elaborate  schemes  may  be  sus- 
ceptible of  substantial  improvement.  After  the  sever- 
est labor,  the  best  plan  sometimes  remains  to  be  dis- 
covered. "There  are  plans  which  applying  the  lever 
as  deeply  as  possible,  raise  the  entire  mass  of  the 
subject  ;  there  are  others  which  escape  the  deepest 
divisions  of  the  matter,  and  which  raise,  so  to  speak, 
only  one  layer  of  the  subject.'1*  But  even  if  no  change 
be  made  in  the  work,  a  revision  of  it  will  be  useful  : 
It  will  fecundate  and  inspire  the  mind  more  thoroughly 

*  Vinet. 


FOB  PREACHING.  155 

with  the  subject,     It  ought  never  to  be  foreborne  if 
there  is  time  to  give  it. 

18.  The  preacher  may  avail  himself  of  aid  in  pre- 
paring. Conference  with  an  intelligent  friend,  com- 
parison of  his  plans  with  those  of  others,  examining 
the  discourses  of  others  on  the  subjects  he  undertakes 
to  treat,  may,  directly  or  indirectly,  assist  him.  But 
more  important  than  all  other  means  of  aiding  him- 
self, is  this  one,  namely  a  quickened  consciousness,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  dependence  on  the  co-operation  of 
the  Spirit ;  and  on  the  other,  of  relying  entirely  on 
no  other  human  mind  than  his  own.  With  these  two 
consciousnesses,  which  generally  are  inseparable,  and 
involve  one  another,  his  mind  will  have  the  normal 
prerequisite  for  its  freest  and.  best  style  of  activity, 
and  for  its  greatest  effectiveness  and  success.  He  will 
not  assist  himself  really  by  any  means  if  he  forget  or 
intermit  his  sense  of  dependence  on  the  Spirit ;  he 
certainly  will  not,  by  using  the  method  or  thoughts 
of  others,  any  otherwise  than  as  he  makes  them  his 
own  by  his  own  mental  rumination  and  digestion. 
Not  more  individual  is  one's  own  flesh  and  blood,  or 
personality  even,  than  the  material  which  one  natu- 
rally or  honestly  works  up  in  the  construction  of  a 
discourse.  It  must  be  his  own  as  veritably  as  his 
mind  is  his  own.  He  may  use  freely  whatever  he  can 
obtain  from  others,  when  he  has  digested  it  and  in- 
wrought it  into  the  life  of  his  own  mind  ;  but  other- 
wise he  cannot  use  it  without  using  what  does  not  be- 
long to  him,  and  he  will  be  a  plagiarist  if  he  takes  to 
himself  the  credit  of  originating  it,  or  gives  it  as  from 


156  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

himself.*  The  method  which  the  mind  truly  uses,  is* 
one  which  it  forms  to  itself  by  a  kind  of  gestatory 
process  ;  it  may  be  suggested  or  given  by  another, 
but  it  is  not  mechanically  accepted,  it  is  received 
through  the  mind's  free  self-activity  ;  it  is  from  the 
application  of  thought  to  the  ultimate  intention,  from 
consideration  of  the  end.  Hence  all  the  material 
of  the  operation  ;  hence,  also,  the  disposition  of  the 
material.  This  it  is  that  determines  the  number  and 
the  arrangement  of  the  parts,  and  the  entire  method 
of  the  work.  The  whole  business  of  speaking  is 
resolvable  into  reflection  on  what  is  to  be  done,  and 
how  to  do  it ;  and  the  first  indicates  the  second  ;  and 
both  presuppose  the  free  exercise  of  the  speaker's 
individuality.  Both  will  express  that  individuality. 
Following  nature,  no  two  persons  do  precisely  the 
same  thing  in  precisely  the  same  way.  The  difference 
will  appear  in  substantial  as  well  as  in  minor  par- 
ticulars. Even  miraculous  inspiration  did  not  hinder 
the  apostles  from  doing  each  his  own  work  after  his 
own  method  and  fashion. 

19.  We  have  nothing  more  to  say  of  the  work  of 
preparing  the  matter  of  the  discourse.  But  prepara- 
tion to  preach  includes  more  than  this — the  preacher 
has  to  prepare  himself  as  well  as  his  sermon.     And 

*  We  see  in  the  light  of  this  fact  how  to  estimate  books  of 
"  skeletons  "  proffered  as  "  helps,"  in  the  composition  of  sermons. 
Except  as  inciting  the  writer  to  self-exertion  (and  generally  they 
do  only  the  contrary),  they  are  not  helps  indeed,  unless  they  do, 
as  is  the  case  with  some  of  them,  the  whole  business  themselves  ; 
when,  if  they  are  used,  they  occasion  the  preacher's  falling  into 
the  snare  of  plagiarism. 


FOR  PREACHING.  157 

this,  after  all,  is  the  most  important  part  of  the  pre- 
paration.    "  It  is  not  so  much  by  what  he  says,  as  by 
what  he  is,  that  the  preacher  may  flatter  himself  that 
he  does  not  beat  the  air.    Before  everything  he  is  con- 
cerned to  hold  the  mystery  of  the  faith  in  a  -pure  con- 
science.    This  pure  conscience  is  the  true  force  of 
preaching.     A  discourse  is  powerful  from  the  motive 
of  him  who  pronounces  it,  whatever  may  be  the  mode 
in  which  that  motive  expresses  itself.     A  discourse  is 
so  much  the  better  the  more  it  resembles  an  act  of 
contrition,  of  prayer,  of  martyrdom.     The  preacher 
should  regard  himself  as  a  channel  for  what  ought  to 
be  conveyed  by  him  into  the  heart  of  his  hearers."* 
Preaching  presupposes  a  very  peculiar  habit  or  temper 
of  spirit.     Preaching  is  an  action  of  the  soul  of  the 
highest  spiritual  excellence,  if  it  be  rightly  performed, 
but  for  the  right  performance  of  which,  no  ready-made 
discourse,  however  good,  is  the  least  security.     The 
actual  labor  of  the  pulpit  is  as  much  a  spiritual, 
Divine-Human  work,  as  the  most  spiritual  preparation 
for  that  labor.     The  co-operation  of  the  Spirit  has 
never  been  more  necessary  than  now.     Even  if  the 
words  of  the  sermon  have  been  prepared  by  His  help, 
and  are  in  themselves  spiritual  words,  they  cannot  be 
reproduced  aright  by  the  voice  without  the  continu- 
ance of  the  Divine  aid.     If  the  Spirit  withdraw  Him- 
self from  the  preacher  in  the  reading  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, he  cannot  read  them  as  he  should.     The  words 
are  spiritual,  but  not  his  reading  of  them.     The  repe- 
tition of  words,  whether  from  the  Bible  or  the  sermon, 

*  Vinet. 


158  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

should  be  in  the  exercise  of  spiritual  discernment 
"  a  sense  of  the  excellency  of  the  things  of  the 
Spirit,  and  a  conviction  of  the  truth  and  reality  of 
them  thence  arising.''  There  is  no  action  more  full 
of  spirituality,  more  animated  by  spiritual  perception 
in  its  highest  degrees,  than  the  just  delivery  of  an 
evangelical  sermon.  The  short-coming,  therefore,  in 
preparation  to  preach,  however  elaborate  and  com- 
plete, is  radical,  if  the  preacher  has  omitted  to  pre- 
pare himself.  His  preaching,  after  all,  will  not  be 
preaching  indeed.  He  may  be  very  eloquent,  the 
matter  of  his  sermon  very  spiritual,  but  his  preaching 
will  not  differ  essentially  from  the  speaking  of  a  mere 
barrister  ;  it  will  be  as  really  of  mere  human  ability 
or  accomplishments.  The  barrister,  perhaps,  might 
deliver  the  sermon  as  well  as  he  ;  the  action  in  his 
delivery  of  it  would  have  the  same  moral  nature  ; 
the  eloquence  would  be  no  other  than  natural  elo- 
quence ;  it  would  be  void  of  holiness,  void  of  spiri- 
tuality, void  of  the  peculiar  influence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  absence  of  the  spiritual  element  in  pulpit 
elocution  makes  preaching  preaching  no  longer.  Dis- 
course bearing  this  name,  with,  perhaps,  the  highest 
linguistic  and  logical  excellencies,  and  even  having 
the  most  sacred  verities  of  the  Gospel  for  its  matter, 
may  be  no  less  ambitious,  no  less  studious  of  personal 
reputation  and  popular  applause,  no  more  in  affinity 
with  the  inspiration  and  influences  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
than  the  oratory  of  the  forum  or  the  platform. 

20.  The  personal  disqualification  may  include,  if 
not  a  want  of  modesty  or  feeling,  a  want  of  self- 


FOR  PREACHING.  159 

COMMAND    IN    PRESENCE    OF    THE    ASSEMBLY,    a   Serious 

matter,  if  one  is  going  to  preach  without  notes.  A 
slight  discomposure  of  mind  is  enough  to  take  away 
his  ability  to  reproduce  his  discourse,  even  as  a 
breath  of  wind  on  the  surface  of  a  lucid  water  will 
deprive  it  of  its  capacity  of  showing  the  images  of  the 
trees  and  other  objects  which  are  about  it.  And  a 
man  of  sensibility,  who  has  due  respect  to  the  as- 
sembly, and  to  his  own  position,  is  in  danger  of  being 
thus  agitated,  especially  in  extempore  speaking,  how- 
ever well  prepared  and  practised  in  the  art.  Even 
Cicero  has  said  of  himself,  and  he  told  certain  emi- 
nent orators  to  whom  he  was  speaking,  that  he  had 
observed  the  same  thing  to  be  true  of  them,  that  "  he 
grew  pale  at  the  beginning  of  a  speech  and  felt  a 
tremor  in  every  part  of  his  frame."  "  When  a  young 
man,"  he  added,  "  I  was  so  intimidated,  that  (I  speak 
it  with  the  highest  sense  of  gratitude)  Quintus  Max- 
imus  adjourned  the  court  when  he  perceived  me  thus 
oppressed  and  disabled  with  concern."  Heroical 
preachers,  who  have  been  many  years  in  the  ministry, 
are  no  strangers  to  this  perturbation.  "  I  am  now  an 
old  man,"  said  Luther,  "  and  have  been  a  long  while 
occupied  in  preaching,  but  I  never  ascend  the  pulpit 
without  a  tremor."*  Practice  in  preaching,  to  one 
whom  familiarity  has  not  made  unfeeling,  to  one  who 
has  been  growing  in  the  grace  which  pulpit  duty 
requires  for  its  just  performance,  enhances,  rather 
than  diminishes,  the  liability  to  agitation  at  the  out- 

*  Nunc  senex  et  diu  concionando  versatus  sim,  sed  nusquam 
suggestum  conscendo  sine  treinore. 


160  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

set  of  the  delivery  of  a  sermon.  "  The  more  a  man 
excels  in  speaking,  lie  is  the  more  sensible  of  its 
difficulty  ;  he  is  under  the  greatest  concern  for  the 
event  and  to  answer  the  expectation  of  the  public."* 
Let  one  approach  the  pulpit  with  a  matured  sense 
of  the  pre-eminent  sacrcdness  of  the  position  which 
he  is  about  to  occupy,  the  responsibilities  attached  to 
it,  the  issues  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  it,  and  of  his 
own  insufficiency  for  this  work,  and  would  it  be  pos- 
sible for  him  to  remain  unmoved  without  more  than 
human  support  ?  We  are  acquainted  with  a  preacher 
who,  after  escaping,  through  Divine  mercy,  out  of  a 
state  of  spiritual  decline,  was  so  burdened  with  emo- 
tion in  the  pulpit  the  next  Sabbath  morning,  that  he 
could  scarcely  command  himself,  or  bear  his  new 
experiences,  though  he  had  been  fourteen  years  in  the 
ministry. 

In  speaking  of  the  high  peculiarity  proper  to  true 
feeling  and  action  in  the  pulpit,  the  words  of  St.Cyran 
deserve,  we  think,  the  deepest  consideration.  "  Preach- 
ing is  a  mystery  not  less  awful  and  terrible  than  that 
of  the  eucharist.  It  appears  to  me  that  preaching  is 
much  more  awful  ;  for  it  is  that  by  which  souls  are  be- 
gotten and  quickened  unto  God ;  whereas  by  the 
eucharist  they  are  only  nourished,  or  to  speak  more 
correctly,  healed.  For  my  part  I  had  rather  say  a 
hundred  masses  than  preach  once.  We  are  alone  at 
the  altar,  but  in  the  pulpit  we  preach  to  a  public  as- 
sembly, where  we  ought  to  fear  offending  God  more 
than  elsewhere,  unless  we  have  previously  labored  for  a 

*  Cicero. 


FOR  PREACHING.  161 

long  time  to  mortify  our  spirit,  and  that  pruriency  which 
every  one  has  to  know  many  fine  things,  which  is  the 
greatest  temptation  that  remains  to  us  from  the  sin  of 
Adam."  Is  it  not  probable  that  too  much  of  the  self- 
possession  and  familiarity  commonly  exhibited  in 
preaching  is  to  be  referred  rather  to  the  presence  of  a 
manuscript,  or  to  an  unspiritual  self-assurance,  than 
to  proficiency  in  pulpit  piety  and  grace?  It  is  not 
in  either  of  these  that  the  potentiality  is  seated, 
for  spiritual  activity  in  preaching ;  it  lies,  exclus- 
ively, in  a  habit  of  soul,  produced  and  perpet- 
uated with  reference  to  it,  by  the  anointing  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  We  read  of  primitive  preachers*  that 
they  were  men  habitually  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
faith ;  and  from  the  nature  of  the  business  which  is 
done  in  true  preaching,  it  could  not  but  be,  that  a  man 
so  subjectively  qualified,  would  have  this  fullness  in 
special  vigor  and  force,  when  engaged  in  this  business. 
It  is  hence,  and  hence  alone,  that  there  is  a  security 
for  that  holy  self-composure,  that  sublime  elevation 
above  all  regard  to  self,  and  the  fear  of  man,  which  is 
the  condition  of  performing  this  business  aright. 

21.  Having  analyzed  preparation  for  preaching,  so 
far  as  it  is  common  to  both  methods,  we  return  to 

WRITING,    WHICH     MAKES     THE     DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN 

THExM.  The  difference  is  not  small ;  for  writing,  after 
the  best  preparation,  is  a  long  and  painful  labor. 
Writing  is  not  a  bare  transcription  on  paper  of  what 
has  been  mentally  prepared.  The  words  of  the  dis- 
course, as  we  have  remarked,  have  not  been  prepared  ; 
*  John,  Peter,  Stephen,  Paul,  Barnabas,  etc. 


162  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

they  are  produced  by  the  emergency  of  the  mind  in 
the  operation  of  writing.  Not  more  in  extemporizing 
than  in  composing,  are  the  verbal  creations  and  con- 
structions, the  creations  of  the  moment ;  there  are  not 
ready-made  sentences  or  words  for  either.  The  labor 
of  the  linguistic  work  in  writing,  is  commonly  much 
more  difficult  than  the  labor  of  preparing  for  it ;  not 
only  are  the  forms  of  language  originated  now,  but 
new  ideas  and  relations  are  originated  also.  "  Writ- 
ting  is  still  thinking,  still  inventing,  still  arranging.""' 
"  To  write  well  is  at  once  to  think  well,  to  feel  well, 
to  render  well :  it  must  have-,  at  the  same  time,  mind, 
soul  and  taste  ;  style  requires  the  combination  and  ex- 
cellencies of  all  the  intellectual  powers.  The  intellec- 
tual excellencies  which  it  contains,  all  the  relations  of 
which  it  consists,  are  so  many  truths  not  less  useful, 
and  perhaps  of  more  value  to  the  human  mind,  than 
those  which  form  the  foundation  of  the  subject. "t 

22.  The  usefulness  of  writing  depends  on  its  being 
done  with  care.  Writing  is  useful  as  a  gymnastic  of 
the  mind,  that  is  to  say,  when  the  mind  acts  as  an 
athlete,  when  its  utmost  abilities  are  put  forth  :  writing 
again  is  useful  as  contributing  to  the  command  of  lan- 
guage ;  as  a  means  of  chastening,  purifying,  and  invig- 
orating style,  of  improvement  in  disposition  and 
method,  of  thoroughness  in  the  treatment  and  exhibi- 
tion of  subjects,  and,  chiefly,  as  we  have  said  already, 
of  proficiency  in  extemporizing.  But  the  writing 
which  subserves  these  ends,  is  no  other  than  elaborate 
composition  ;  the  fruit  of  a  struggle  after  ideal  excel- 
*  Vinet.  f  Buffon. 


FOR  PREACHING.  163 

lence.  We  cannot  retract  what  we  have  said  :  Better 
be  restricted  to  preparation  for  preaching  extempore, 
than  fall  into  a  habit  of  preparing  by  unstudious,  sup- 
erficial, extemporaneous  writing. 

23.  But  it  is  to  be  kept  vividly  and  constantly  be- 
fore the  mind,  in  writing  for  the  pulpit,  that  there  is  a 

FUNDAMENTAL  SPECIALITY  IN  THIS  KIND  OF  COMPOSITION. 

It  approaches  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  style  of  ex- 
temporaneous speaking.  In  its  ideal,  preaching  is,  as 
we  have  before  said,  extemporaneous  as  to  its  lan- 
guage ;  the  extemporaneous  sermon,  therefore,  abstract- 
ing its  faults,  is  the  model  as  to  the  style  and  diction 
of  one  which  is  to  be  written  ;  it  gives  command  in  the 
verbal  construction  of  the  sermon.  The  pen,  in  coin- 
position,  should  as  much  as  possible  do  the  very  office 
of  the  tongue  in  its  unpremeditated  utterances.  It 
should  intend  the  words  it  writes,  not  for  the  eye,  but 
the  ear.  The  preacher  should  imagine  the  assembly 
he  is  to  address  to  be  present  with  him  where  he  is 
writing,  and  make  his  silent  sentences  and  words  as  a 
tongue  or  a  living  voice  wherewith  he  speaks  to  it. 
He  must  write  in  a  style,  analogous,  not  to  a  miniature, 
but  to  the  bold  representations  of  scene-painting.  He 
has  lost  the  idea  of  preaching  if  he  think  it  realizable 
in  a  composition  suited  peculiarly  to  the  press.  The 
composition  of  a  sermon  should,  if  possible,  be  made 
perfect  in  its  kind;  but  its  kind  is  its  own,  and  unchange- 
able. The  style  of  the  sermon,  like  its  matter  and  its 
purpose,  is  individual  and  unique. 

24.  But,  moreover,  and  infinitely  more  important : 
Writing  for  the  pulpit  should,  no  less  than  the  ante- 


164  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

cedent  preparation  for  writing,  be  kept  under  the 

COMMAND    AND    CONTROL   OF    THE   HOLY   SPIRIT.      Not 

less  needful  now  is  the  Spirit's  co-operation  :  if  possi- 
ble it  is  more  needful.  There  is  special  danger  of 
being  uuspiritual  in  this  part  of  the  labor :  the  danger 
of  the  undue  pursuit  of  ornament  ;  of  ambitious  ora- 
tory ;  of  going  into  a  search  for  the  enticing  words  of 
man's  wisdom  ;  of  depending  too  much  on  the  sermons 
or  plans  of  others  ;  of  being  too  speculative  and  ab- 
struse, or,  on  the  other  hand,  vulgar  and  commonplace  ; 
of  being  only  half  or  almost  true  :  in  a  word,  of  ignor- 
ing the  Spirit's  part  in  preaching,  and,  consequently, 
of  abating  the  necessity  and  exercise  of  prayer.  In 
writing,  much  more  than  in  the  preliminary  labor,  and 
than  in  extemporizing,  the  mind  busies  itself  about  the 
externalities,  the  outward  investments  of  the  matter  ; 
in  the  other  operation,  it  is  engrossed  with  the  matter 
alone  ;  or  if  it  apply  itself  at  all  to  the  clothing  of  its 
thoughts,  it  does  so  for  the  most  part,  in  an  embryotic 
manner  ;  there  is  no  distinct  construction,  or  discern- 
ment of  forms  of  language.  The  mind  certainly  can  and 
often  does  think  in  these  forms,  but  if  it  never  thinks 
without  them,  they  are  often  undistinguishable  even  in 
its  own  consciousness.  It  is  at  least  certain,  that 
whereas  in  writing,  the  expression  is  very  apt  to  be 
the  principal  thing,  it  is  comparatively  as  nothing  in 
the  direct  activity  of  the  extempore  speaker.  And 
this  shows  the  specially  high  place  which  prayer 
should  have  in  writing  sermons  :  it  is,  if  possible,  more 
important  now  than  in  preparing  the  matter.  The 
expression  of  a  written,  no  less  than  a  spoken  sermon, 


FOB  PREACHING.  165 

ought  to  be  spiritual,  but  where  it  is  the  chief  object 
of  attention,  there  is  special  clanger  that  it  will  not 
be  ;  it  will  be  from  special  spirituality  in  the  writer  of 
the  sermon  if  the  structure  and  tissue  of  it  be  not  un- 
spiritual  ;  in  wisdom  of  words,  rather  than  in  demon- 
stration of  the  Spirit  and  of  power. 

25.  The  work  of  composition  generally   goes  on 
better  when,  without  anxious  attention  to  diction,  the 

PEN  OF  THE  WRITER  MOVES  SWIFTLY,  UNDER  THE  IM- 
PULSE OF  STRONG  AND  VIVID  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  SUB- 
JECT. Direct  study  of  expression  at  the  time  of  writing 
is  seldom  the  best  method  of  success  in  the  style  of  a 
composition.  Quintilian  tells  us,  that  the  choicest 
expressions  are,  for  the  most  part,  adherent  to  things, 
and  are  seen  in  their  own  light ;  while  we  search  after 
them  as  if  they  were  hiding  and  stealing  themselves 
away  from  us.  Still  we  know  that  one  may  have  vigorous 
conceptions  without  ability  to  express  them  well ;  there 
are  very  good  thinkers  who  are  not  good  writers. 
Again,  it  is  a  matter  of  experience,  that  after  the  best 
preparation  of  the  matter  one  can  make,  he  has  some- 
times to  depend  on  the  labor  of  expression  at  the 
moment  of  performing  it,  to  give  him  the  precise  con- 
ceptions he  needs  in  order  to  write  well.  It  is  so 
sometimes  in  speaking  extempore  ;  it  is  oftener  so  in 
writing.  The  movement  of  the  tongue  in  the  former, 
and  much  more  of  the  pen  in  the  latter,  is  deliberate 
and  interrupted  ;  the  expression  being  studied  as  a 
means  of  more  distinctness  of  thought.  But,  generally, 
good  writers  and  speakers  give  their  direct  attention 
to  thought  first  and  chiefly  :  leaving  expression  to 


166  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

come  at  the  nisus,  and,  as  it  were,  the  call  of  thought. 
The  opposite  order,  the  study  of  expression  chiefly, 
produces  a  style  not  without  ideas  altogether,  but 
"  with  ideas  of  tinsel,  ideas  without  roots  and  without 
power;  or,  if  some  thought  is  mixed  with  ir,  it  is  ex- 
ternal to  the  subject,  sustained  by  nothing,  and  unsus- 
tained."*  A  vigorous  style  is  from  strong  and  vigor- 
ous thinking,  directed  to  the  matter,  not  to  the  diction. 
"  A  true  style  is  not  the  mask  but  the  physiognomy  of 
thought ;  it  comes  from  thought,  as  complexion 
comes  from  the  blood,  as  the  flower  springs  from 
the  sap."  This  tells  tells  us  why  it  is  that  very 
masculine  writing  is  sometimes  slow,  very  slow,  per- 
haps, in  its  progress.  It  nevertheless  remains  a  fact, 
that  one  ordinarily  writes  best,  especially  if  he  is 
occupied  on  a  sermon,  which  should  always  have  a 
popular,  speaking  style,  when  inspired  and  stimula- 
ted by  clear  views  of  his  subject ;  his  pen  is  nimble 
and  brisk,  and  yet  perhaps  much  too  slow  for  the 
movement  of  his  mind.f 

But  though  with  the  generality  of  preachers,  the 
rule  in  writing  a  sermon  should  be  to  despatch  it, 
currente  calamo,  yet  they  should  not  assume  that  be- 
cause they  have  followed  the  best  method,  and  prob- 
ably produced  a  better  composition  than  tliey  could 
have  otherwise  done,  they  should  not  subject  it  to  a 
critical  revision  of  the  language,  now  that  it  is  sub- 
stantially finished  according  to  the  true  rule.  Verbal 
criticism  has  been  biding  its  time  ;  after  a  little  rest 

*  Vinet. 

f  Dr.  Alexander's  chief  trouble  in  writing  was  the  time  requir- 
ed in  the  chirography. 


FOR  PREACHING.  167 

from  the  labor  of  composition,  this  second  labor  may  be 
instituted,  not  only  without  peril,  but  probably  with 
much  advantage,  to  the  fruit  of  the  first.  The  first 
words,  and  the  first  verbal  constructions  are  not 
always  the  best,  even  when  the  writer's  mind  is  preg- 
nant and  aglow  with  clear  and  vigorous  thought  ; 
there  may  be  epithets  too  many  or  too  few,  or  not  well 
selected  ;  sentences  involved  ;  redundant  phrases  ; 
statements  exaggerated  or  imprecise,  or  weak  through 
too  much  strength  ;  or  without  verity  to  thought.  If 
the  criticism  keeps  itself  under  the  law  which  every 
thing  in  a  sermon  should  obey — the  law  which  makes 
subservience  to  the  end  the  critic  of  every  sentence 
and  word — it  can  hardly  be  too  severe.  If  it  do  not 
make  too  large  a  demand  on  time,  it  should  not  rest 
until  it  has  done  its  work  as  exactly  and  completely 
as  possible.  Not  only  the  improvement  of  the  discourse, 
but  the  preacher's  general  improvement  in  the  use  of 
the  language,  is  the  fruit  of  fidelity  in  this  second  la- 
bor of  composition.  It  has  been  of  high  value  with 
the  best  thinkers  and  writers.  John  Foster,  speaking 
of  one  of  his  own  discourses,  says  :  "  I  dare  say  I  could 
point  out  scores  of  sentences,  each  one  of  which  has 
cost  me  several  hours  of  the  utmost  exertion  of  my 
mind  to  put  it  in  the  state  in  which  it  now  stands, 
after  putting  it  in  several  other  forms,  to  each  one 
of  which  I  saw  some  precise  objection,  which  I  could 
at  the  time  have  very  distinctly  assigned."  Robert 
Hall  (witness  what  his  biographer  says  of  his  toil  in 
preparing  his  sermons  for  the  press*)  was  scarcely  be- 
*  "  Writing,  improving,  rejecting  the  improvement;  seeking 


16S  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

hind  his  eminent  contemporary  in  this  exquisite  care 
for  perfect  expression. 

26.  But  to  return  to  the  first  operation  :  If  the 
theory  of  writing  well  forbids  the  study  of  words,  as 
the  first  tiling,  mucli  more  does  it  forbid  the  labor  of 
patch-work  in  the  composition.*  Those  who  write 
detached  passages  at  different  times  never  combine 
them,  we  are  told,f  without  forced  transitions ;  and 
if  they  have  trouble  with  passages  of  their  own  writ- 
ing they  will,  doubtless,  have  more  in  working  up 
excerpts  from  scrap-books,  or  memory,  gathered  in 
reading.  The  construction  of  discourse  is  accretive, 
not  mechanical ;  never  by  mere  juxtaposition  or  acces- 
sion. It  is  the  development  of  a  living  germ,  an  up- 
spring  and  a  growth  from  a  living  seed  of  truth.  It 
takes  nothing  into  itself  from  without  which  it  can- 
not assimilate  ;  it  avoids  heterogeneous,  immiscible 
matter,  as  it  were  by  instinct,  as  the  animal  in  its 
pasture  avoids  the  herbage  which  does  not  suit  its 
hunger.  The  advance  of  a  discourse  to  completion, 
and  especially  a  sermon,  a  Divine-Human  discourse,  is 
from  within  outward ;  what  comes  into  it  from  with- 
out does  so  by  elective  affinity,  and  coalesces  with  its 
life  a5?  it  enters,  so  that  this,  with  the  rest,  works  as 
an  inward  living  force.    Come  whence  or  how  it  may, 

another ;  rejecting  it ;  recasting  whole  sentences  and  pages  ;  often 
recurring  precisely  to  the  original  phraseology ;  and  still  oftener 
repenting,  when  it  was  too  late,  that  he  had  not  done  so." — Dr. 
Gregory's  Memoirs. 

*  "  Purpureus,  late  qui  splendeat,  unus  et  alter 
Assuitur  paunus." 
t  Buffon. 


FOR  PREACHING.  169 

it  will  receive  it  into  itself,  if  it  will  at  once  mix  and 
become  consubstantial  with  its  own  life  ;  but  it  can 
accept  of  nothing  which  is  not  closely  akin  and  ger- 
mane to  itself,  however  beautiful  or  sublime. 

27.  It  is  inexpedient  to  attempt  a  sermon  which  is 
to  be  written  for  an  urgent  occasion,  on  a  theme  not 

ALREADY  FAMILIAR  TO  THE  PREACHER.  His  knowl- 
edge of  it  should  be  adequate  before  he  begins  the 
work.  The  delay  required  by  having  to  gain  new 
knowledge,  is  incompatible  with  the  intense  and  rapid 
thinking  which  is  the  ordinary  condition  of  life  and 
energy  in  the  composition,  and  in  the  present  case, 
probably,  a  stern  necessity.  He  has  no  time  to  give 
to  "reading  up,"  or  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 
He  should  have  a  sufficiency  of  knowledge  when  he 
begins.  If  more  come  to  him  as  he  proceeds,  it 
should  come  spontaneously,  or  from  the  principle  of 
association  or  suggestion,  not  by  any  direct  effort  to 
obtain  it.  By  turning  aside  to  look  into  commentaries 
or  books  of  sermons,  or  even  by  stopping  to  ask  infor- 
mation of  a  friend  who  is  near,  he  is  in  danger  of 
losing  interest  in  his  work  and  breaking  the  vital 
force  and  connection  of  his  thought.  He  cannot  do  two 
things  at  once  ;  he  has  time  for  but  one  ;  and  if  he 
had  more  time,  the  law  of  the  main  labor  he  is  en- 
gaged in  would  forbid  the  appropriation  of  it  to  aught 
else  until  that  labor  is  finished. 

28.  And  one  thing  more  as  to  the  selection  of  a 
favorable  topic.  The  highest  success  in  writing  re- 
quires a  QUICKENED  INTEREST  IN  THE  SUBJECT  AS  WELL 
AS   SUFFICIENT   KNOWLEDGE    OF   IT.        Eloquence  is  not 

8 


170  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION 

from  knowledge  or  thinking  merely,  but  from  sympa- 
thy, from  lively  emotion,  from  light  within,  which 
burns  as  it  shines.  Eloquence  is  the  fruit  of  an  en- 
gagement of  the  powers  and  forces  of  the  mind,  in  a 
business  operation,  an  affair  of  action,  directed  to  an 
immediate  object.  Interest  is  its  law,  its  spring,  its 
life  ;  other  things  being  equal,  the  livelier  the  interest, 
the  higher  the  strain  of  eloquence.  The  preacher 
should,  as  much  as  possible,  be  impassionated  by  the 
subject,  should  put  himself  wholly  into  it,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  give  himself  to  his  hearers  in  and  with  his 
discourse.  This  is  the  condition  of  the  highest  suc- 
cess in  writing  for  the  pulpit ;  and  it  shows,  what 
Pastoral  Theology  teaches  as  one  of  its  great  axioms, 

the  CLOSE  ASSOCIATION  OF  EXCELLENCE  IN  THE  PREA- 
CfllNG   OF    A  PASTOR  WITH   FIDELITY    IN    THE   CARE   OF 

souls.  The  best  parish  preacher  is  not  one  so  en- 
grossed in  preparing  his  sermons  that  he  can  earnestly 
do  little  else  ;  but  one,  on  the  contrary,  so  occupied 
in  the  work  of  pastoral  oversight  that  his  abounding 
in  that  work,  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  state 
of  his  flock  thence  resulting,  gives  him  the  word  of 
command  in  the  selection  of  his  topics  for  preaching, 
and  stimulates  and  guides  him  in  writing  his  dis- 
courses. This  is,  in  truth,  the  pastor's  chief  labor  ; 
that  which,  with  a  conscientious  pastor,  holds  the 
highest  place.  "  I  confess  I  would  rather  hear  the 
care  of  souls  objected  against  preaching,  than  preach- 
in  a-  against  the  care  of  souls.  I  would  rather  one 
should  say  to  me,  my  sick,  my  poor,  my  scattered 
sheep  require  me,  and  forbid  me  to  give  my  preaching 


FOR  PREACHING.  171 

all  the  attention  -which  is  desirable."*  But  there  is 
no  clashing  between  the  two  works  :  they  aid,  use, 
one  another.  Preaching  serves  itself  greatly  of  pa- 
rochial assiduity.  Next  to  prayer  and  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  most  effective  assistance 
in  writing  for  the  pulpit  is  afforded  by  acquaintance 
and  sympathy  with  the  state  of  families  and  individ- 
uals in  the  parish.  In  this,  as  in  everything,  duty  is 
one  in  effect  with  expediency  and  success.  The  secret 
of  life,  alacrity,  excellence,  happiness,  in  preaching  is 
sclf-devotedness,  earnestness,  and  particularity  of  con- 
cern in  the  pastoral  care.  The  difference  between  a 
ministry  of  the  word  which  springs  from  this  concern 
and  fulfills  its  impulses,  and  one  which  may  be  desig- 
nated a  ministry  at  large,  is  often  as  the  difference 
between  liberty  and  servitude,  delight  and  drudgery, 
strength  and  weakness,  success  and  failure. t 

29.  We  here  finish  our  outline  of  this  important 
subject,  feeling  that,  even  as  an  outline,  it  is  very,  very 
incomplete,  and  hoping  that  if  what  we  have  said  shall 
have  no  other  good  result,  it  may  induce  some  one 
better  furnished  for  the  work  to  supply  its  defects, 
correct  its  faults,  and  extend  it  into  a  book.  We  feel 
that  our  subject  deserves  to  be  treated  at  large  ;  it 
has  not  been  so  treated,  so  far  as  we  know.     Vinet 

*  Vinet.  Past.  Theol. 

f  "  I  acknowledge  that  there  are  two  things  whereby  I  regulate 
my  work  in  the  whole  course  of  my  ministry :  To  impart  those 
truths  of  tchose  power  I  have  had,  in  some  measure,  a  real  experi- 
ence ;  and  to  press  those  duties  ichich  present  occasions,  tempta- 
tions and  other  circumstances,  do  render  necessary  to  be  attended 
to  in  a  peculiar  manner." — Dr.  Owen. 


172  THEORY  OF  PREPARATION. 

seems  to  have  included  it  in  the  plan  of  his  great 
work  on  Homiletics  ;*  but  it  has  no  place  in  that 
work  ;  and  we  should  rejoice  greatly  to  know  that  a 
vigorous  thinker,  with  a  strong  and  full  apprehension 
of  the  New  Testament  idea  of  preaching,  with  ade- 
quate learning  and  culture,  and  in  special  communion 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  has  given  himself  to  the  labor 
of  preparing  for  the  press  a  complete  treatise  on  it. 
In  the  plan  of  our  Lord  for  recovering  the  world  to 
Himself,  the  pulpit  remains  ascendant  over  all  other 
means  ;  and  let  means  be  multiplied  or  varied  as  they 
may,  it  will  so  remain  ;  and  if  it  abdicate  its  place, 
or  become  essentially  different  from  what  it  was  at 
first,  other  means,  however  diligently  used,  will  be- 
come as  waters  which  have  no  fountain,  or  as  bitter 
waters  flowing  from  a  fountain  which  has  been 
poisoned.  Next  to  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  upon 
her  general  membership,  the  Church  has  no  interest 
so  momentous  as  the  ministry  of  the  Word.  Amid 
the  radical  errors  and  misbeliefs  of  the  times,  are 
there  no  indications  that  the  appearance  of  such  a 
book  as  we  have  expressed  a  desire  to  see,  would  be 
seasonable  ? 

*  See  page  261. 


VIII. 

DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 


1.  An  intelligent  observer  of  the  common  preaching 
of  the  times,  who  compares  it  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment idea  of  preaching,  or  attempts  to  resolve  it 
into  its  proper  principles  as  claiming  to  be  a  species 
of  public  eloquence,  cannot  but  see  that  in  several 
radical  respects,  it  needs  to  be  reformed.  He  must 
remark  in  it  as  quite  ordinary  and  prominent  features, 
violations  of  oratorical  unity  ;  want  of  the  freeness, 
directness  and  pungency  of  appeal  which  individuate 
the  oratorical  style  ;  want  of  the  impassionate,  the 
unction,  and  the  agonistic  force  by  which  the  oratory 
of  the  pulpit,  more  than  any  other,  should  be  charac- 
terized. But  with  a  just  estimation  of  its  share  of  im- 
portance in  preaching,  must  he  not,  above  all,  note  and 
lament  an  imperative  demand  for  reformation  in  the 
particular  which  forms  the  subject  of  this  article  ? 
Long  ago,  the  pulpit  was  reproached  very  sharply  for 
a  very  bad  manner  of  delivery.  Said  a  celebrated  ec- 
clesiastic to  a  celebrated  actor  of  the  former  century  : 
"  How  is  it  that  you  who  deal  in  nothing  but  fiction 

(173) 


174  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

can  so  affect  your  audience  as  to  throw  them  into 
tears,  while  we  who  deliver  the  most  awful  truths  can 
scarcely  produce  any  effect  whatever?"  "  Here,"  re- 
plied the  actor,  "  lies  the  secret :  you  deliver  your 
truths  as  if 'they  were  fictions  ;  but  we  deliver  our  fictions 
as  if  they  were  truths."  There  has  been,  it  would  seem, 
no  material  change  for  the  better.  It  has  been  recent- 
ly remarked,*  that  action  in  speaking  generally  is  so 
little  approved  or  designedly  employed,  that  it  is 
hardly  any  part  of  the  orator's  art.  In  reference  to 
preaching,  the  fact  has  been  spoken  of  thus  :  "  Why 
are  we  natural  everywhere  but  in  the  pulpit  ?  Why  this 
holoplexia  on  sacred  occasions  alone  ?  Why  call  in 
the  aid  of  paralysis  to  piety  ?  Is  it  a  rule  of  oratory 
to  handle  the  most  sublime  truths  in  the  driest  man- 
ner? Is  sin  to  be  taken  from  men,  as  Eve  was  from 
Adam,  by  casting  them  into  a  deep  slumber  V  t 

2.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  small  moment.  If 
preaching  be  indeed  a  kind  of  eloquence,  and  if  its 
efficacy  depend  at  all  on  its  being  true  to  its  princi- 
ples as  such,  nothing  relating  to  the  practice  of  it  is 
weightier.  Delivery  comprehends  all  the  modes  of 
expression  in  public  speaking.  "  It  is,"  says  Cicero, 
very  admirably,  "  the  eloquence  of  the  body ;  and  im- 
plies the  proper  management  of  the  voice  and  gesture." 
According  to  the  masters  of  the  art  and  practice  of 
speaking,  it  is  the  chief  thing  in  eloquence.  "  What 
we  have  composed,"  says  Quintilian, "  is  not  of  so  much 
consequence  as  how  it  is  delivered  ;  because  everyone 
is  affectod  in  proportion  as  he  is  made  to  hear. 
*  By  Archbishop  Whatoly.  f  Sidney  Smith. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  175 

There  is  no  proof  so  strong  but  it  will  lose  its  force 
unless  it  is  aided  by  an  emphatic  tone  in  the  speaker  ; 
and  all  passions  must  become  languid  unices  spiritcd- 
up  by  the  voice  and  countenance  and  attitude  of  the 
body.".   In  like  manner,  Cicero    gives  more  import- 
ance to  delivery,  than,  apart  from  it,  to  what  is  deliv- 
ered.    "  Without  a  good  delivery,  the  best  speaker 
can  have  no  name,  and  with  it,  a  middling  one  can 
obtain    the    highest."      Demosthenes    goes   further : 
"  Being  asked  what  was  the  greatest  excellency  in  or- 
atory, he  not  only  gave  the  preference  to  delivery,  but 
assigned  to  it  the  second  and  the  third  place  ;  where- 
by it  appeared  that  he  judged  it  not  so  much   the 
principal,  as  the  only  excellency.''     His  own  practice 
accorded,  it  would  seem,  with  his  judgment.     "  After 
iEschines  had  lost  a  cause,  he  retired   in  disgrace 
from  Athens  to  Rhodes,  where,  at  the  request  of  the 
Rhodians,  ho  read  to  them  that  fine  oration  which 
Demosthenes  had  pronounced  against  Ctesiphon,  which 
he  did  with  a  charming  voice.     When  everybody  was 
expressing  their  applause  :    '  How  would  you  have  ap- 
plauded,' says  he,  '  if  you  had  heard  the  author  him- 
self deliver  it  ?'     Whereby  it  appears  what   a   vast 
influence  action  had,  since  the  change  of  the  actor 
could  make  the  same  speech  appear  in  quite  a  different 
light."*     Let  us  not  wonder  at  this  estimation  of  this 
part  of  oratory.     WTho  that  has  been  much  employed 
in  speaking  has  not    often  found  a  good   discourse 
spoiled,  and  a  poor  one  made  quite  a  success,  by  the 
manner  of  pronouncing  it  ?     The  preaching  of  White- 
*  Cicero  de  Oratore.  • 


176  DELIVERY  IN  PRE  ACHING. 

field,  apart  from  his  delivery,  was  in  no  respect 
extraordinary  ;  including  his  delivery,  it  has  never 
been  equalled.  "  To  ignorant  and  semi-  barbarous 
men,"  said  John  Foster,  "  even  common  truths,  in 
Whitefield's  preaching,  seemed  to  strike  on  them  in 
fire  and  light." 
3  "*6>  In  the  tones  of  the  voice  alone  there  are 
elements  of  eloquence  of  inconceivable  force. 
The  human  voice  and  the  human  mind,  both  inscrut- 
able marvels  of  divine  handiwork,  were  made  for  one 
another.  ;'  The  voice,  together  with  the  look  and  the 
whole  frame,  is  responsive  to  the  passions  of  the  mind, 
as  the  strings  of  a  musical  instrument  are  to  the  fin- 
gers which  touch  them.  For  as  a  musical  instrument 
has  its  different  keys,  so  every  voice  is  sharp,  full,  slow, 
loud  or  low  :  and  then  each  of  these  keys  has  different 
degrees  which  beget  other  strains,  such  as  the  smooth 
and  the  sharp,  the  contracted  and  the  lengthened,  the 
continued  and  the  interrupted,  the  tender,  the  shrill 
and  the  swelling." 

4.  But  the  voice,  with  its  wonderful  modulations,  is 
unmeasurably  aided  by  the  other  part  of  the  elo- 
quence of  the  body.  "  No  man  expresses  warm  and 
animated  feelings  with  his  mouth  alone,  but  with  his 
whole  body.  He  articulates  with  every  limb  and  joint, 
and  talks  from  head  to  foot  with  a  thousand  voices."f 
And  how  does  the  accession  of  fitting  gesture  to  vocal 
expression  emphasize  and  enhance  the  latter  ?  In 
Paul's  address  to  Agrippa,  what  vivid,  overcoming  elo- 
quence was  added  to  his  vocal  utterance,  by  his  dis- 

*  Cicero.  f  Sidney  Smith. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  177 

playing  his  chains?  "Except  these  bonds.1'  How 
did  Antony  intensify  the  words  of  his  oration  over 
the  dead  body  of  Ctesar,  by  uncovering  it  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  and  counting  over  its  wounds  one 
by  one  ?  To  the  peroration  of  Burke's  speech,  in  the 
impeachment  of  Hastings,  what  an  overwhelming  force 
of  eloquence  was  given,  when,  with  streaming  eyes 
and  with  a  suffused  countenance,  he  raised  his  hands 
with  the  documents  in  them  as  a  testimony  to  Heaven 
of  the  guilt  of  the  person  charged?*  What  had 
Whitefield's  apostrophe  "  to  the  attendant  angel  "been, 
abstracting  from  it  his  supplosio pedis,  and  his  lifting 
up  his  eyes  with  gushing  tears,  compared  to  what  it 
was  by  virtue  of  this  accompanying  gesticulation? 
Take  from  the  celebrated  conclusion  of  Webster's 
argument  before  the  Supreme  Court,  in  the  case  of 
Darmouth  College,  the  quivering  of  the  lips,  the  trem- 
bling of  the  firm  cheeks,  the  choked  voice,  the  eyes 
overfull  of  tears,  of  the  great  Advocate,  and  that  con- 
clusion would  never  have  been  celebrated  or  remem- 
bered.f 

*  «  jfever  was  eloquence  more  triumphant.  His  audience  could 
endure  the  agony  no  longer.  Mrs.  Siddons  confessed  that  all  the 
terror  and  pity  she  had  ever  witnessed  on  the  stage,  sunk  into 
insignificance  before  the  scene  she  had  just  witnessed.  Mrs. 
Sheridan  fainted  ;  and  the  stern  Lord  Chancellor,  Thurlow,  who 
had  always  in  the  most  headstrong  way  insisted  on  Hastings'  in 
nocence,  was  observed  for  once  in  his  life  to  shed  a  tear." 

f  "  The  court-room  during  these  two  or  three  minutes,  presented 
an  extraordinary  spectacle.  Chief  Justice  Marshall  bent  over  as 
if  to  catch  the  slightest  whisper  ;  Mr.  Justice  Washington,  at  his 
side,  leaning  over  with  an  eager  troubled  look  ;  and  the  remain- 
der of  the  court,  at  the  two  extremities,  pressing  as  it  were  to  a 
single  point,  while  the  audience  were  wrapping  themselves  round 
8* 


178  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

5.  Delivery  holds  the  same  place  in  Preaching, 

THAT  IT  HAS    IN    NATURAL   ELOQUENCE.      The  human  ill 

it  is  not  less  complete  or  normal  from  its  subordina- 
tion to  the  Divine.  The  supernatural  does  but  tend 
to  and  require  perfection  in  the  natural.  If  therefore 
delivery  is  the  chief  thing  in  eloquence  as  such,  it  is 
the  chief  thing  in  preaching.  There  are  congruities, 
proprieties  of  delivery,  peculiar  to  preaching ;  but 
they  are  not  in  any  disagreement  with  nature  ;  they 
are,  in  kind,  only  such  accommodations  to  occasions 
and  circumstances,  as  nature  requires  in  different  in- 
stances and  moments  of  secular  oratory.  They  are 
but  requirements  of  nature  in  a  peculiar  sphere.  No 
eloquence  applies  more  completely  and  naturally  the 
principles  of  oratorical  art,  than  the  genuine  elo- 
quence of  the  pulpit.  Delivery  here  also,  then,  has  the 
supremacy. 

6.  There  is  therefore  no  justification  of  the  com- 
mon disparagement  of  delivery  in  preaching  ;  and  no 
apology  for  it.  It  implies  a  violation  of  order  beyond 
a  mere  violation  of  nature,  a  violation  of  it,  also  in 
the  sphere  of  the  supernatural — a  counteraction  of  order 
in  a  work  in  which  the  chief  part  belongs  to  the  Holy 
Spirit:  a  counteraction  of  the  Spirit's  influence  and 
agency  in  it.  The  part  which  the  Spirit  has  in  it,  im- 
poses, as  its  corollary,  an  obligation  on  the  preacher, 

in  closer  folds  beneath  the  bench,  to  catch  each  look  and  every 
movement  of  the  speaker's  face.  If  a  painter  could  give  us  the 
scene  on  canvass — their  forms  and  countenances,  and  Daniel  Web- 
ster as  he  then  stood  in  the  midst — it  would  be  one  of  the  most 
touching  pictures  in  the  history  of  eloquence." — Prof.  Goodrich 
to  Mr.  Clioate. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  179 

to  give  to  delivery  his  principal  regard.  Being  first 
in  itself,  it  is  first  in  the  regard  of  the  Spirit,  who 
cannot  but  estimate  things  as  they  are.  If  the 
preacher  puts  it  last,  or  aught  else  above  it,  he  is 
therein  at  variance  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  impairs 
if  he  does  not  entirely  thwart  His  operation.  By  the 
inversion  of  order  for  which  he  makes  himself  respon- 
sible, he  cannot  but  grieve,  if  he  does  not  altogether 
quench  the  Spirit  of  God.  And  he  will  be  likely  to 
gain  little  by  misapplying  to  something  else  attention 
which  is  due  to  delivery.  He  will  not  compose  as 
well,  he  will  not  make  as  good  a  sermon  in  any  re- 
spect, as  he  would  if,  in  making  it,  he  concurred  with 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  his  estimation  of  delivery.  Not 
having  been  made  with  just  reference  to  good  delivery, 
it  will  doubtless  be  little  suitable  to  it  ;  perhaps  in- 
compatible with  it ;  that  is  to  say,  as  an  instrument 
of  oratory,  it  will  be  at  fault,  if  not  directly  opposite 
to  what  it  should  be,  in  respect  to  the  exigency  of 
eloquence  in  its  chief  element.  Underrating  delivery, 
therefore,  cannot  but  be  inexpedient,  in  the  whole 
business  of  preaching.  It  is  a  capital  mistake  and  its 
fruits  are  after  its  kind.  It  is  the  bane  of  pulpit  elo- 
quence. 

7.  Proceeding  now  with  our  main  design,  which  is 
to  present  as  far  as  we  can  in  a  few  brief  remarks, 
the  theory  of  delivery  in  preaching,  we  first  of  all 
premise,  as  its  chief  principle,  that  even  more  if  pos- 
sible THAN  IN  MAKING  THE  SERMON,  THE  BUSINESS  OP 
DELIVERING  IT,  IS  SPIRITUAL  ;  CONSISTING  IN  THE  HIGH- 
EST activities   of   spiritual   life.       Cicero    makes 


180  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

action  in  speaking  radically  different  from  that  of  the 
stage  :  "  Orators,"  he  says,  i;  are  the  actors  of  truth  ; 
players  but  its  mimics."  Infinitely  greater  is  the 
difference  between  action  in. preaching  and  in  other 
oratory  ;  since  the  distance  is  infinite,  between  nature 
and  spirit.*  Just  action  in  speaking,  therefore,  quite 
as  much  as  the  discourse  itself,  is  of  Divine-Human 
agency.  It  is  impossible  to  the  preacher,  except  as 
he  is  moved  and  actuated  thereto  and  therein,  by  the 
Spirit  of  God.  It  is  infinitely  beyond  his  ability  on 
two  accounts  :  in  the  first  place,  he  cannot  have  the 
kind  of  knowledge,  the  spiritual  light  and  sense  neces- 
sary to  it ;  and  secondly,  having  this  knowledge,  he 
still  needs  the  co-operation  of  the  Spirit,  in  order  to 
express  it  appropriately  in  delivery — the  eloquence  of 
the  hody.  As  to  the  former,  the  continued  agency  of 
the  Spirit  is  indispensable  because  spiritual  know- 
ledge, unlike  the  other  kind,  cannot,  from  its  nature, 
be  retained,  or  recalled,  apart  from  the  unintermitted 
working  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  soul.  The  preacher 
may  have  had  the  Divine  aid  in  making  his  sermon  ; 
the  sermon,  both  as  to  its  matter  and  words  may  be 
a  spiritual  one  ;  its  delivery  nevertheless  will  not  be 
spiritual,  if  spiritual  knowledge  or  discernment  be 
required  in  it  ;  only  the  incessant  operation  of  the 
Spirit  within  him,  can  fulfill  this  condition.t  "  I  fear," 
says  Pascal,  with  admirable  judgment,  "  that  you  do 
not  sufficiently  distinguish,  between  the  things  you 

*  The  infinite  distance  between  body  and  mind,  is  a  figure  of 
the  infinitely  more  infinite  distance  between  mind  and  love," — 
the  fruit  of  the  Spirit.— Pascal.  f  In  a  letter  to  his  sister. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  181 

speak  of  (spiritual  things)   and  those  of  which  the 
world  speaks  ;  since  it  is  beyond  doubt  sufficient  to 
have  once  learned  these  latter  things,  in  order  to  re- 
tain them,  so  as  not  to  require  to  be  taught  them 
again ;    whereas,  it   is    not   sufficient  to  have   once 
learned  those  of  the  other  kind,  and  to  have  compre- 
hended them  in  a  good  way,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  in- 
ternal operation  of  God,  in  order  to  preserve  a  like 
knowledge  of  them,  though  we  may  well  retain  the 
recollection  of  them.     There  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  be  able  to  remember  them,  or  why  we  should 
not  retain  in  our  memory,  an  epistle  of  St.  Paul  as 
easily  as  a  book  of  Virgil.    But  the  knowledge  which 
we  acquire  in  this  way,  as  well  as  the  continuation  of 
it,  is  but  an  effect  of  memory  ;  whereas  in  order  that 
those  who  are  of  heaven  may  understand  this  secret 
and  strange  language,  it  is  needful  that  the  same 
grace  which  alone  can  give  the  first  understanding  of 
it  should  continue  it,  and  render  it  always  present,  by 
graving  it  incessantly  in  the  hearts  of  the  faithful,  so 
as  to  keep  it  always  alive.    As  in  the  blessed,  God  is 
continually  renewing    their   beatitude   which    is   an 
effect  and  consequence  of  grace  ;  as  also  the  church 
holds,  that  the  Father  continually  produces  the  Son, 
and  maintains  the  eternity  of  His  being,  by  an  effusion 
of  His  own  substance,  which  is  without  interruption 
as  well  as  without  end."     But  in  a  spiritual  delivery, 
the  continued  influence  of  the  Spirit,  is  on  another 
account  required  ;  spiritual  knowledge,  its  indispen- 
sable condition  is  not  sufficient  for  it  of  itself.      It 
cannot  express  itself  in  the  appropriate  action,  with- 


182  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

out  being  aided  therein  by  the  Spirit :  it  is  not  pro- 
vided for  by  knowledge  alone.  Action,  which  is  more 
than  knowledge,  needs  aid  for  itself.  In  elocutionary 
action,  as  well  as  in  thinking  and  writing,  the 
preacher,  however  qualified  hy  self  culture,  can  attain 
to  no  degree  of  spirituality,  by  merely  natural  effort. 
If  the  activity  of  a  preacher  in  speaking,  the  elo- 
quence of  the  body,  be  indeed  spiritual,  it  is  doubtless 
a  higher  exercise  of  the  spiritual  life,  than  either  of 
its  other  exercises  in  the  business  of  preaching.  It 
must  needs  be  so,  if  it  be  answerable,  in  all  respects, 
to  the  unique  and  mysterious  exigencies  of  such  a 
work,  as  delivering  appropriately  the  inspired  word 
of  God  as  a  vehicle  and  representative  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Apart  from  a  very  special  operation  of  the 
Spirit  himself,  who  is  sufficient  for  the  just  perform- 
ance of  this  work? — spiritual  things,  expressing  them- 
selves fitly,  in  spiritual  modulations  of  the  voice,  spir- 
itual looks,  spiritual  attitudes — the  supernatural  ex- 
erting itself  proportionately  in  and  through  these 
bodily  signs  of  thought  and  feeling — think  of  one's 
having  in  himself,  an  independent  sufficiency  for  this  ! 
i  The  apostles,  with  all  their  gifts  for  other  uses,  had  it 
not,  nay,  even  our  Lord's  spirituality  of  mind  and 
knowledge,  added  to  the  perfectly  natural  use  of  the 
human  powers  did  not  qualify  Him  adequately,  for  the 
business  of  dispensing  the  word,  independently  of  the 
continued  co-agency  of  the  Spirit  in  this  specific  busi- 
ness ;  even  He  delivered  His  discourses,  under  the 
anointing  and  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God.* 
*  Luke  iv.  18,  cf.  21,  iv.  14. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  183 

After  His  resurrection,  it  was  still,  through  the  Holy- 
Ghost,  that  He  gave  commandment  to  the  apostles 
whom  He  had  chosen.  * 

8.  It  need  hardly  be  added,  that  in  all  prelim- 
inary WORK  WITH  REFERENCE  TO  DELIVERY,  THE 
PREACHER     MUST      ABIDE     IN      COMMUNION     WITH     THE 

Holy  Spirit.  He  is  not  sufficient,  of  himself,  for 
the  least  of  the  exercises  of  self-culture  prerequisite 
to  just  pulpit  action.  The  teachers  of  elocution,  with 
their  utmost  assiduities,  cannot  make  him  independent 
of  the  Spirit's  aid  in  practising  aright  the  rules  of 
art,  relative  to  delivery  in  preaching,  or  in  studying 
aright  the  philosophy  of  voice  and  gesture.  They 
cannot  instruct  him,  in  what  he  chiefly  needs  to  know 
and  do,  in  order  to  act  well  his  part  in  pronouncing 
his  discourses.  No  appliances,  whether  simply  natu- 
ral or  artistic,  can  effect  anything  to  this  end  of 
themselves  ;  they  may  suffice  for  the  orators  of  the 
world ;  they  come  infinitely  short  of  meeting  the 
necessities  of  preachers.  As  far  as  preparatory  prac- 
tice for  pulpit  delivery  proceeds,  on  the  contrary  sup- 
position its  failure  is  inevitable.  It  is  so  of  necessity  ; 
were  it  otherwise,  it  might  become  so  by  real,  if  not 
conscious  visitations  of  Divine  displeasure.  It  is  an 
offence,  a  glaring  disrespect  to  the  Holy  Spirit  whose 
proffered  aid  it  declines.  Let  not  the  ministers  of 
the  Word  forget  for  a  moment  the  most  intimate  and 
sacred  relations — relations  never  for  a  moment  sus- 
pended— between  the  work  of  their  office  and  the 
high  prerogatives  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  economy 
of  the  Gospel. 

-  Acts  i.  2. 


184  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

9.  In  regard  to  particular  points  of  attention, 

THE  DETAILS  OF  APPLICATION  IN  CULTIVATING  DELIV- 
ERY, there  is  no  substantial  difference  between  preach- 
ing and  other  kinds  of  public  eloquence.  Preachers 
cannot  be  too  well  acquainted  with  the  theory  of 
elocution  ;  cannot  know  too  well  the  principles  of 
emphasis,  the  science  of  the  passions,  and  their  inter- 
relations with  each  other  ;  how  they  naturally  ex- 
press themselves  in  the  tones  of  the  voice,  the  looks, 
attitudes,  movements  of  the  body,  etc.*  The  spiritu- 
ality of  pulpit  action,  and  the  part  in  it  belonging 
to  the  Holy  Ghost,  interfere  in  no  degree  with  the 
highest  culture  in  reference  to  it.  On  the  contrary, 
they  favor  and  promote  it.  It  is  one  of  the  proper 
designs  of  the  Spirit's  influence  to  secure  attention  to 
it  as  far  as  possible.  It  is  among  the  ends  to  which 
He  lends  His  aid  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the 
general  neglect  so  much  to  be  deplored,  into  which 
delivery  in  preaching  has  fallen,  is  to  be  ascribed,  in 
great  measure,  to  want  of  pains-taking  with  regard  to 
it  arising  from  being  out  of  the  Spirit's  counsel  in  this 
matter.  It  is  not  of  Him  that  preachers  have  been 
inclined  to  neglect  the  scientific  study  of  elocution. 
The  labor  which  this  study  requires  is,  doubtless,  the 
explanation  of  its  being  neglected.  The  labor  un- 
questionably, is  a  severe  one ;  but  had  the  Holy 
Spirit  been  obeyed,  it  would  have  been  accepted  as 
a  pleasure.f 

*  See  Cicero,  de  Oratore,  lib.  iii.  c.  56-61. 
f  Labor  ipse  voluptas — when  performed  in  the  strength  of  the 
Spirit. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  185 

10.  But  supposing'  that  no  preliminary  pains  have 
been  omitted,  and  that  nothing  remains  but  delivery 

itself,    WHAT    METHOD    SHOULD    BE    FOLLOWED    IX    THIS 

part  of  preaching  ?  The  actual  methods  arc  three  : 
Reading.  Reciting  and  Extemporising.  Reserving  the 
last  for  the  moment,  which  of  the  first  two  should 
be  preferred  ?  Both  reproduce  a  written  discourse, 
which  does  it  in  the  better  manner  ?  Taking  them  in 
their  best  form,  Reciting,  doubtless,  has  the  advantage. 
In  general,  reciting  is  injured  by  requiring  an  effort 
of  memory  in  order  to  recall  the  words  of  the  dis- 
course. But  there  is  a  kind  of  recitation  which  has 
no  such  inconvenience ;  the  reciter,  in  this  case,  has 
no  more  concern  about  his  words  or  linguistic  forms 
than  the  extemporizer  ;  he  uses  the  very  expressions 
he  has  written  ;  but  he  does  this  from  his  perfect  pos- 
session of  his  subject,  not  from  a  consciously  distinct 
exercise  of  recollection.  He  has  his  composition  so 
exactly  and  thoroughly  by  heart,  that  to  reproduce  it 
he  has  but  to  open  his  mouth  ;  his  utterance  of  it  is 
as  spontaneous  as  his  breathing.  We  speak  what  to 
us  is  a  mystery,  but  we  are  acquainted  with  an  eminent 
person,  in  whom,  according  to  his  own  assertion  to 
us,  it  is  actualized.  His  language  in  speaking,  though, 
elaborately  written,  is  as  spontaneous  as  it  would  be 
if  he  were  extemporizing.  So  intimately  identified 
and  united  are  his  thought  and  the  form  of  it  in  his 
manuscript,  that  it  would  require  an  effort  to  separate 
them.  Such  a  way  of  reciting  as  this,  is,  undoubtedly, 
preferable  to  the  best  way  of  reading.  But  it  is  very 
uncommon  ;  except  to  a  few  privileged  geniuses,  it  is 


1S6  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

extremely  difficult  if  not  impossible.  To  almost  every- 
one who  practices  it,  reciting  is  a  labor  of  recollec- 
tion, requiring  even  for  an  imperfect  performance  of 
it,  an  anxious  mental  application.  This  fact  is  a  very 
grave  objection  to  this  method  being  generally  ad- 
opted. For  by  how  much  the  mind  is  occupied  in 
recalling  forms  of  expression,  by  so  much  is  it  disabled 
for  the  work  itself  of  delivery.  This  is  no  part  of 
the  business ;  it  is  another  business ;  the  common 
reciter  attempts  two  things  at  once.  He  puts  himself 
to  an  impracticable  task ;  his  delivery  is  bad  at  best ; 
and,  what  is  another  serious  disadvantage,  lie  is  apt 
to  betray  a  solicitude,  lest  the  words  of  his  manuscript 
escape  him  ;  and  the  hearers  perceiving  his  embarrass- 
ment, are  hindered  from  attending  to  what  lie  says, 
by  sympathetic  trouble,  fearing  that  his  memory  may 
fail  him.  Generally,  therefore,  reciting  is  much  in- 
ferior to  reading,  at  least  to  the  best  way  of  reading. 
It  is  inferior,  we  think,  to  reading  as  commonly  prac- 
ticed. Bad  as  this  is,  there  is  no  interference  in  it 
from  a  distinct  exercise  of  thought  about  another  mat- 
ter, and  whether  interested  by  it  or  not,  the  hearers 
are  at  ease. 

11.  Delivery  by  reading  may  rise  to  high 
excellence. — In  this  method  one  may  be  exclusively 
occupied  by  the  sense  ;  the  words  are  before  his  eye  ; 
but  he  does  not  think  of  them  ;  he  is  not  conscious 
of  seeing  them  ;  the  subject  with  reference  to  its  pur- 
pose wholly  engrosses  him  ;  he  has  no  concern  except 
through  reading,  to  possess  his  hearers  of  it,  and  com- 
pel them  to  yield  to  its  force.     Into  his  delivery,  such 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  187 

as  it  is,  he  throws  himself  entirely  ;  his  action  may  be 
very  defective ;  his  gestures,  especially,  may  be  awk- 
ward or  ungraceful  ;  but  his  hearers  are  so  interested 
with  what  he  says,  that  they  see  nothing  amiss.  In- 
finitely different  is  reading  like  this  from  ordinary 
reading,  which  simply  reports  what  is  written  on  the 
page.  This  reading  does  more  than  inform  ;  it  is  full 
of  living  fire ;  it  conveys  the  preacher's  soul,  all 
aglow  with  the  inspiration  of  his  subject,  and  the  pur- 
pose for  which  he  treats  it.  Such  was  the  method 
of  Chalmers,  the  most  eloquent  preacher  of  his  age. 
He  read,  but  what  was  his  reading  as  an  instrument 
of  oratory !  Edwards,  too,  was  a  reader — a  quiet 
reader — but  in  what  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and 
power  was  the  preaching  of  that  great  man  of  God  ! 
12.  But  neither  in  Reciting  nor  in  Reading  does 
the  ideal  of  delivery  reside.  As  to  reading,  the 
best  of  these  methods,  a  very  high  authority  would 
hardly  admit  it  into  a  comparison  with  that  which 
we  named  last.  "  Pleadings  which  are  read,"  says 
Pliny  *  "  lose  all  their  force  and  warmth  and  well 
nigh  their  very  name,  as  being  things  which  the  ges- 
tures of  the  speaker,  his  bold  advances,  even  his 
changes  of  position  and  the  activity  of  his  body,  in 
harmony  with  all  the  emotions  of  the  mind,  are  wont 
at  once  to  enforce  and  kindle.  But  the  eyes  and 
hands  of  one  who  reads,  which  are  the  main  auxiliaries 
of  delivery,  are  fettered,  so  that  it  is  no  wonder  the 
attention  of  the  auditors  flags,  since  it  is  sustained 
by  no  charm,  and  awakened  by  no  excitement  from 
*  Epist.  iv  :  lib.  ii. 


138  DELIVERY  IX  PREACHING. 

without. "  Edwards,  also,  notwithstanding  his  con- 
trary practice,  which,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
he  thought  it  had  been  well  had  he  never  followed, 
pronounced  delivery  without  notes  the  most  natural 
way,  and  that  which  had  the  greatest  tendency,  on  the 
whole,  to  answer  the  end  of  preaching.  It  appeared 
evident  to  him,  to  have  been  the  manner  of  the  apostles 
and  primitive  ministers  of  the  Gospel.*  A  thousand 
examples  demonstrate  the  incomparable  superiority  of 
this  manner.  By  the  side  of  that  of  Whitefield,  what 
is  the  best  possible  way  of  reading  !  In  his  looks  ; 
his  tears  ;  the  flashes,  glances,  suffusion  of  his  eyes  ; 
in  his  attitudes  and  changes  of  position  ;  in  the  sud- 
den effects  of  reaction  on  himself  from  observed  im- 
pressions on  the  hearers,  what  matchless  eloquence — 
utterly  impossible  in  any  other  than  extemporaneous 
speaking !  Admitting  that  it  was  spiritual  as  well 
as  natural,  as  it  doubtless  may  have  been  and  was  in 
a  high  degree,  the  conclusion  is  intuitive,  that  delivery 
can  rise  into  its  highest  sphere  only  in  extemporaneous 
discourse.  Think  of  the  spiritual  and  the  natural 
combining  harmoniously  in  such  an  instance  of  the 
eloquence  of  the  body  as  the  following :  "  Treating 
of  the  sufferings  of  our  Saviour,  as  though  Geth- 
semane  were  in  sight,  he  would  say — stretching  out 
his  hand  :  '  Look  yonder — What  is  it  I  see  ?  It  is  my 
agonizing  Lord.'  And  as  though  it  were  no  difficult 
matter  to  catch  the  sound  of  our  Lord  praying,  he 
would  exclaim  :  '  Hark !  hark  !  do  you  not  hear  Him  ?' " 
Wonderful  preaching!     We  admit  that  it  is  of  the 

*  Life  of  Edwards,  by  Dr.  Hopkins. 


DELIVERY  IN  PRE  ACHING.  189 

best  in  its  kind  ;  but  we  are  contrasting  with  it  the 
very  best  of  any  other. 

13.  We  go  on  to  say  that  it  is  against  true  art, 

AGAINST  NATURE,  AND,  OF  COURSE,  AGAINST  THE  DOMIN- 
ION of  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  Delivery,  to  put  among 

PREPARATIVES   FOR  IT  A  PRESCRIBED    OR    PREMEDITATED 

scheme  for  regulating  it  ;  to  determine  beforehand 
what  the  emphases,  looks,  gestures,  are  to  be  in  par- 
ticular parts,  and  perhaps  to  preactualize  them  in  a 
rehearsal  "  practiced  at  the  glass."  On  two  accounts, 
this  must  be  a  preposterous  way.  In  the  first  place, 
just  action  in  speaking  cannot  be  anticipated  :  the 
time  for  it  must  indicate  it.  It  is  only  the  critical 
moment  itself  that  can  give  its  idea  ;  it  is  contingent 
on  the  unimaginable  futuritions  and  incidents  of  elocu- 
tion. But  were  it  otherwise,  good  delivery  after  this 
method  would  be  an  impossibility.  With  a  programme 
of  action  artistically  perfect,  the  speaker  would 
have  no  advantage  ;  he  could  not  carry  it  out  justly. 
He  could  make  no  good  use  of  it.  The  very  attempt 
to  use  it  would  disable  him  for  proper  elocution. 
What  art  could  conceal  the  art  he  would  be  trying  to 
practice  ?  and  what  effect  on  his  delivery,  from  the  la- 
bor to  conceal  it  ?  The  hearers  doubtless  would  not 
fail  to  know  :  itself  the  surest  testimony  to  its  absurd- 
ity. As  to  all  earnest  action  having  an  object  ulterior 
to  itself,  it  is  an  instinct  of  nature,  that  not  its  manner 
but  its  object ;  or,  in  such  a  business  as  that  of  public 
speaking,  its  subject  with  reference  to  its  object,  be 
exclusively  regarded  at  the  moment  of  performing  it. 
Even  a  good  reader  obeys  this  instinct.    "  A  reader  is 


190  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

sure  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  his  voice,  not  only 
if  he  pays  any  at  all,  but  if  he  does  not  strenuously 
labor*  to  withdraw  his  attention  from  it  altogether. 
He  who  not  only  understands  fully  what  he  is  reading-, 
but  is  earnestly  occupying  his  mind  with  the  matter  of 
it,  would  be  likely  to  read  as  if  he  understood  it.  And 
in  like  manner,  with  a  view  to  the  impressiveness  of 
the  delivery,  he  who  not  only  feels  it  but  is  exclusive- 
ly absorbed  with  that  feeling,  will  be  likely  to  read 
as  if  he  felt  it,  and  to  communicate  the  impression  to 
his  hearers.  But  this  cannot  be  the  case  if  he  is  occu- 
pied with  the  thought  of  what  their  opinion  will  be  of 
his  reading,  and  how  his  voice  ought  to  be  regulated; 
if,  in  short,  he  is  thinking  of  himself,  and,  of  course,  in 
the  same  degree  abstracting  his  attention  from  that 
which  ought  to  occupy  it  exclusively. "f  It  is  there- 
fore certain  that  there  should  be  no  labor  in 
speaking  to  carry  out  a  scheme  of  delivery.  The 
study  of  delivery,  now,  must  be  forborne  ;  pro- 
per application  to  this  study  is  'previous,  like  the 
educational  training  by  which  one  is  furnished  for  ar- 
tistic action  in  all  particular  art  performances.  One 
who  applies  the  principles  of  art  (e.g.),  in  writing  or 
in  playing  of  an  instrument  of  music,  gives  while  do- 
ing this  no  direct  thought  to  these  principles ;  they 
have  become  a  second  nature  to  him,  through  his 
familiarity  with  them.  Scarcely  more  does  the  bee 
act   by    instinct    in  building    its    cell  according    to 

*  In  order  to  overcome  acontrariant  inclination,  too  wont  to  be 
besetting  him. 
t  Whately. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  191 

the  principles  of  mechanics,  than  he  does  in  his 
exquisite  exemplifications  of  art.  So  acts  the  accom- 
plished speaker  in  delivering  his  discourse.  He  has 
studied  delivery  ;  but  he  is  not  studying  it  now.  He 
knows  the  theory  of  delivery  ;  this  has  acquainted  him 
with  his  old  faults  in  speaking.  He  has  corrected 
them  ;  he  has  formed  good  elocutionary  habits.  Hence, 
and  hence  alone,  his  security  for  proper  action  on 
occasions  as  they  arise. 

14.  In  accordance  with  this  principle  of  Delivery, 

VERY  EMINENT  PROFICIENTS  IN  IT  HAVE  PROTESTED 
STRONGLY  AGAINST  ALL  ATTEMPTS  TO  FOLLOW  OUT  A  FOR- 

casted  programme  of  action.  The  great  tragedian 
of  the  recent  past*  after  experience  of  the  disadvant- 
ages of  this  method,  gives  his  testimony  concerning  it, 
in  these  striking  terms  :  "  It  has  been  imagined,  even 
by  enlightened  minds,  that  in  studying  my  parts  I 
place  myself  before  a  glass,  as  a  model  before  a  paint- 
er in  his  atelier.  According  to  them,  I  gesticulate,  I 
shake  the  ceiling  of  the  room  with  my  cries.  In  the 
evening  on  the  stage,  I  utter  the  intonations  I  learned 
in  the  morning  :  prepared  inflections  and  sobs  of  which 
I  know  the  number  ;  imitating  Crecentini,  who,  in  his 
Romeo,  evinces  a  despair  beforehand,  in  a  passage 
sung  a  hundred  times  over  at  home,  with  a  piano  ac- 
companiment. It  is  an  error.  Reflection  is  one  of  the 
greatest  parts  of  my  labor.  Following  the  example 
of  the  poet,  I  walk,  I  muse,  or  even  seat  myself  on  the 
margin  of  my  little  river  :  like  the  poet,  I  rub  my  fore- 
head ;  it  is  the  only  gesture  I  allow  mvself ;  and  you 
*  Talma. 


192  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

know  it  is  by  no  means  one  of  the  grandest.  Oh,  how 
a  thing  becoming  historical  remains  true !  If  any- 
one should  inquire  how  I  have  found  the  greater 
part  of  my  greatest  successes,  I  should  reply,  by  con- 
stantly thinking  of  them.  We  were  rhetoricians  and 
not  dramatic  personages.  How  many  academic  dis- 
courses on  the  stage !  How  few  words  of  simplicity ! 
But  one  evening  chance  threw  me  into  the  parlor  with 
the  leaders  of  the  Gironde  Party  ;  their  sombre  and 
disquieted  appearance  attracted  my  attention.  There 
were  written  there,  in  visible  characters,  great  and 
mighty  interests.  As  they  were  too  much  men  of  heart 
to  allow  these  interests  to  be  tainted  with  selfishness, 
I  saw  there  manifest  proofs  of  the  danger  of  the  coun- 
try. All  were  assembled  for  pleasure,  yet  no  one 
thought  of  it.  Discussion  ensued ;  they  touched  the 
most  thrilling  questions  of  the  crisis.  It  was  beautiful  : 
I  imagined  myself  present  at  a  secret  deliberation  of  the 
Roman  Senate.  It  is  thus,  thought  I,  that  men  should 
speak.  The  country,  whether  it  be  named  France  or 
Rome,  employs  the  same  accents,  the  same  language. 
If  they  do  not  declaim  here,  neither  did  they  declaim 
in  the  olden  time,  it  is  evident.  These  reflections  made 
me  more  attentive.  My  impressions,  though  produced 
by  a  conversation  void  of  all  emphase,  became  pro- 
found. An  apparent  calmness  in  these  men,  thought 
I,  agitates  the  soul.  Eloquence  then  may  have  force 
without  throwing  the  body  into  disorderly  movements. 
I  even  perceived  that  discourse  uttered  without  effort 
or  outcry,  renders  the  gesture  more  energetic,  and 
gives  more  expression  to  the  countenance.     All  these 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  193 

deputies,  thus  assembled  before  me,  appeared  far  more 
eloquent  than  at  the  tribune,  where,  finding  themselves 
a  spectacle,  they  thought  it  necessary  to  utter  their 
harangues  in  the  manner  of  actors  as  we  then  were  ; 
that  is  to  say,  of  declaimers  fraught  with  turgidity. 
From  that  moment  I  caught  new  light,  and  saw  my  art 
regenerated." 

15.  After  proper  self-culture  in  elocution  and  re- 
newing the  prerequisite  communion  with  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  only  condition  of  success,  the  only  object  of 
preliminary  concern,  in  a  particular  instance  of  preach- 
ing, IS  TO  BE  FULLY  POSSESSED,  TO  BE  THOROUGHLY  IN- 
SPIRED BY  THE  SUBJECT  AND  THE  OCCASION.    This  IS  the 

prime  necessity  of  all  eloquence  ;  it  was  the  discovery 
of  the  great  French  actor,  when  his  eyes  were  opened 
to  see  the  true  secret  of  delivery.  Hence  it  was  that 
rejection  became  his  great  labor ;  that  he  walked, 
mused,  sat  on  the  margin  of  the  river,  rubbed  his  fore- 
head after  the  manner  of  the  poet.  He  sought  to 
absorb  himself  in  his  subject ;  he  left  action  to  itself. 
Being  qualified  generally  for  his  art,  by  acquainting 
himself  with  the  philosophy  of  the  voice  and  of  ges- 
ture, and  by  just  self-culture,  in  accordance  with  it,  he 
assumed  that  what  remained  to  him,  as  the  prerequisite 
of  success,  was  to  get  perfect  command  of  his  subject ; 
or,  to  speak  better,  to  give  the  subject  perfect  com- 
mand and  supremacy  over  him.  This,  witli  the  quali- 
fications just  mentioned,  is  all  that  remains  to  the 
preacher ;  and  his  is  no  other  than  the  player's  way 
of  gaining  it.  That  way  is  the  thorough  rumination  of 
the  subject,  meditating  on  it  over  and  over  again  ; 
9 


194  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

not  the  committing  to  memory  the  words  be  is  to  re- 
peat, with  premeditated  action,  but  the  working  their 
meaning,  their  strength,  into  himself ;  the  tilling  him- 
self with  their  total  sense ;  the  vitalizing  himself  with 
it  in  its  breadth,  length,  depth  and  height ;  the  making 
it  so  live  and  rule  in  all  his  life,  that  its  procession 
from  him  in  delivery  shall  be  rather  a  spontaneous 
outflow  than  the  result  of  a  separate  memoriter 
effort,  Doubtless,  the  memory  is  exercised,  intensely 
exercised,  even  when  this  is  done  ;  but  not  exclus- 
ively or  distinguishably  to  the  consciousness  from 
the  other  powers  of  the  mind.  The  memory  and 
these  are  united,  are  inter-blended  in  the  operation,  as 
rays  in  the  sunbeam.  There  may  be  moments  when 
it  acts  by  itself,  even  in  a  delivery  very  good  on  the 
whole  ;  but  they  are  exceptive  and  anxious  moments  ; 
and  the  delivery  now  deteriorates,  and  witnesses 
against  itself  as  violating  its  norm.  As  soon  as  the 
recollective  faculty  is  distinctively  exercised,  the 
speaker  generally  betrays  the  fact ;  his  hearers  see  his 
hesitation,  and  begin  to  tremble  for  him  lest  his 
memory  should  lapse,  and  to  wish  he  had  his  manu- 
script lying  open  before  him. 

16.  It  is  impossible  to  prescribe  a  standard  op 
action  for  all  preachers.  There  are  peculiar  congrui- 
ties  of  pulpit  delivery  which  must  not  be  violated  ;  the 
preacher  with  his  hearers  is  in  the  temple  ;  he  is  the 
representative  of  the  awful  presence  of  God  ;  on  mat- 
ters of  infinite  moment  he  acts  in  the  name  of  the  great 
and  dreadful  Unseen.  The  difference  as  to  interest 
between   his  business  and  that  of  any  orator  of  the 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  195 

world,  makes  the  latter,  however  great  in  itself,  less 
than  nothing  comparatively.  Without  being  under 
a  total  eclipse  of  spiritual  illumination,  and  entirely 
out  of  the  communion  and  harmony  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  he  cannot  be  insensible  to  this  fact  ;  and  if  he 
lias  but  a  faint  impression  of  it,  he  cannot  allow  him- 
self in  certain  modes  and  ways  of  action,  which,  in 
secular  orators,  are  sometimes  proper  and  even  highly 
admirable  ;  they  would  be  unnatural,  monstrous,  in  the 
elocution  of  the  pulpit.  Nevertheless,  who  may  give 
the  preacher  an  absolute  rule  or  criterion  of  delivery  ? 
Beyond  self-evident,  palpable  improprieties,  every 
preacher  is  a  rule  to  himself;  his  idiosyncrasy  is  his 
rule.  What  would  he  a  just  measure  to  one,  would 
be  a  defective  or  an  extremely  excessive  and  absurd 
one  to  another.  The  lion  docs  not  more  differ  from  the 
lamb,  than  preachers  from  one  another  in  elocutionary 
gifts.  In,  different  preachers,  vehemence  and  gentle- 
ness, commotion  and  stillness,  thunder  and  whisper, 
whirlwind  and  zephyr,  arc  both  alike  appropriate 
characteristics  ;  as  they  are  also  very  suitable  and 
natural,  in  the  same  preachers  at  different  moments. 
Both,  too,  are  alike  acceptable  to  the  Spirit,  who  at- 
tempers His  influences  to  the  natures  of  His  instruments, 
making  them  now  as  the  softest  breath,  now  as  a  rush- 
ing mighty  wind,  or  as  lightning  and  fire.  It  is  not 
by  the  quantity,  but  by  the  quality  of  pulpit  action 
that  the  holy  proprieties  are  on  the  one  hand  violated, 
and  on  the  other  maintained.  There  maybe  the  sub- 
limest  form  of  spirituality  in  abundant  and  stormy 
action  :    and   there  may  be  nothing  better  than  t lie 


196  DELIVERY  IN  P REACHING. 

affectation  of  tenderness,  in  a  quiet,  soft,  reserved  man- 
ner of  delivery.* 

17.  It  follows  from  what  we  have  just  been  saying, 
or  rather  is  included  in  it,  that  imitation  can  have 

NO    PLACE    LN    JUST    ACTION    IN    SPEAKING.       In    this   as 

well  as  in  invention,  in  disposition,  in  the  entire  con- 
struction and  finish  of  his  discourse,  a  true  speaker  is 
himself  and  not  another  ;  he  is  generally  true  even  to 
his  habitual  imperfections  of  manner.  Without  re- 
nouncing his  own  identity  he  may  profit  by  observ- 
ing excellencies  and  faults  in  the  elocution  of  others  ; 
he  may  thus  acquaint  himself  better  with  his  own  de- 
fects, instruct  himself  better  generally  in  the  regula- 
tion  of  his  voice,  emphasis,  attitudes,  etc.;  and  stimu- 

*  How  far  violent  or  very  demonstrative  action  may  have  place 
in  preaching  without  indecorum,  no  rule  can  determine.  White- 
field  was  often  exceedingly  demonstrative,  but  so  far  as  we  know, 
never  undignified  or  ungraceful.  The  severest  criticism,  that  of 
Hume,  Chesterfield,  Franklin,  Garrick,  gave  it  transcendent  praise. 
How  vehement  was  the  delivery  of  Chalmers !  how  terrible  that 
of  Knox !  how  lion-like  that  of  Luther !  Each  a  mighty  man  of 
God,  a  chosen  and  an  eminent  vehicle  of  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  We  once  heard  a  sermon  from  the  elder  Mason,  the  de- 
livery of  which  combined,  with  unexceptionable  propriety,  a  man- 
ner in  the  highest  degree  bold  and  even  dramatic.  He  began 
with  a  rap  on  the  desk,  personating  one  knocking  at  the  door — 
"a  messenger  from  the  world  of  spirits."  He  used  personation 
freely  in  the  midst  of  the  discourse,  and  at  the  close,  it  rose  to 
sublimity.  The  subject  was — deliverance  from  bondage  through 
the  fear  of  death.  (Heb.  ii.  15.)  He  first  dramatized  the  death-bod 
scene  of  one  who  died  in  his  sins — a  wilful  ueglecter  of  this  great 
salvation  ;  and  then  that  of  a  triumphant  believer.  His  manner 
was  to  the  last  in  keeping  with  its  surprising  outset.  We  had 
no  sense  of  anything  at  all  amiss  in  this  wonderful  instance  of 
pulpit  elocution.     It  seemed  to  be  no  less  proper  than  unusual. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  197 

late  himself  in  studying  the  principles  and  philosophy 
of  delivery  ;  but  he  could  not  but  mar  his  own  action 
by  endeavoring  to  model  it  after  another's.  He  might 
as  soon  change  himself  into  another  man  as  be  natural 
any  longer.  If  his  hearers  happen  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  example  he  is  striving  to  copy,  they  will  not 
fail  to  see  his  weakness,  and — what  of  itself  sufficiently 
confutes  all  such  imitation — they  cannot  but  think  it 
unfortunate  for  him  ;  a  palpable  vanity.  A  tolerable 
speaker  he  might  perhaps  have  been  if  he  had  been 
content  with  himself  ;  he  has  made  himself  an  intoler- 
able one  by  his  pitiable  emulation.  It  remains  that 
after  studying  models  with  reference  to  general  im- 
provement, the  only  thing  in  which  they  are  to  be 
imitated  is  that  by  which  they  made  themselves 
models,  namely,  their  absolute  independence  and  for- 
getfulness  of  models  in  delivery. 

18.  It  seems  to  us  that  one  of  the  chief  causes  of 
bad  delivery  in  preaching,  a  sufficient  cause  of  it,  cer- 
tainly, is  THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  ORDINARY  SERMON, 
SO  CALLED,  ESPECIALLY  ITS  DEFECT  IN  RESPECT  OF  THE 
ORATORICAL    ELEMENT,    THE    BUSINESS-LIKE    CHARACTER 

OF  all  true  oratory.  Delivery  in  discourse  takes 
its  stamp,  in  part,  from  the  sort  of  discourse  which  is 
given ;  oratorical  delivery  requires  an  oration ;  that 
is  to  say,  a  discourse  which  is  an  affair,  an  earnest, 
agonistic  speech,  which  has  a  single  point  ulterior  to 
itself,  and  which  has  no  other  concern  than  to  carry 
that  point.  Preaching  is  too  seldom  discourse  like 
this.  It  is  sometimes  chiefly  expository,  as  perhaps  it 
should  be.     But  when  preaching  is  not  of  this  form, 


198  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

when  it  uses  what  has  the  name  of  the  sermon,  which, 
by  its  etymology  should  be  an  oration  par  excel- 
lence* it  is  frequently,  if  not  generally,  as  a  whole, 
no  oration  at  all :  it  has  several  points  instead  of  one  ; 
perhaps  indeed  no  point  in  particular.  It  treats  sev- 
eral co-ordinate  propositions  ;  it  is  rather  an  analysis 
than  a  synthetic  speech,  like  that  of  a  pleader  at  the 
bar;  it  makes  a  treatise  or  an  essay:  it  is  without 
oratorical  unity  ;  of  course,  it  cannot  but  be  defective 
in  oratorical  delivery  :  and  if  such  be  the  actual  char- 
acter of  preaching,  as  undoubtedly  it  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, this  defect  is  but  its  natural  and  proper  concomi- 
tant. Nor  is  there  a  possibility  of  the  desired  change 
in  the  elocution  of  the  pulpit,  while  preaching  retains 
this  abnormal  character.  It  surely  ought  not  to  re- 
tain it  as  extensively  as  it  has  done.  Preaching  in 
its  ideal  is  a  species  of  oratory  ;  the  noblest  form  of 
it.  In  its  ordinary  efforts  no  discourse  should  excel 
it  in  singleness  of  design,  or  in  strenuous,  suasory, 
synthetic  urgency  to  attain  its  end.  In  some  of  its 
specimens  (those  e.  g.  of  Baxter,  Edwards,  Chalmers), 
no  discourse,  not  that  of  Demosthenes  or  Burke,  does 
in  these  respects  excel  it.  Let  preaching  be  generally 
true  to  its  own  idea,  its  supreme  law  as  a  means  to  the 
highest  of  all  ends,  and  with  just  cultivation  of  de- 
livery, preachers,  in  respect  to  this  part  of  eloquence, 
will  cease  to  hide  their  "  diminished  heads "  in  the 
presence  of  other  speakers.     At  least,  it  is  only  on 

*  Why,  else,  should  the  term  sermon  (speech),  be  restricted  to 
sacred  discourse,  as  if  a  secular  oration  was,  comparatively,  not 
a  speech  at  all  ? 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  199 

tins  condition  that  even  with  the  utmost  attention  to 
delivery,  much  proficiency  in  it  is  to  be  expected.  The 
character  of  the  discourse  will  continue  to  overrule 
and  determine  that  of  its  delivery,  in  conformity  to 
itself. 

19.  There  is,  let  us  add,  a  conventional  restraint 
on  pulpit  elocution,  from  the  preacher's  place  in  the 
assembly.  He  stands  above  and  at  a  distance  from 
them,  behind  a  desk,  which  conceals  more  than  half 
his  person.  His  seclusion  may  give  him  some  con- 
veniences in  conducting  the  immediate  preliminaries 
of  preaching  ;  but  it  should  be  no  privilege  to  him  in 
delivering  his  discourse.  If  an  earnest  speaker  "  ar- 
ticulates with  every  limb  and  joint,  and  talks  from 
head  to  foot,  with  a  thousand  voices,"  how  much  is  an 
earnest  preacher  curtailed  of  his  means  of  bodily  ex- 
pression, by  the  narrow  enclosure  which  he  occupies  ? 
He  is  without  advantage  from  his  lower  limbs ;  his 
bust  only  is  seen  ;  he  cannot  change  his  position  ;  his 
attitudes  are  but  half  visible,  and  for  this  cause,  proba- 
bly, disagreeable.  How  must  his  delivery  be  marred 
by  these  subtractions  of  "  the  eloquence  of  the  body  ?" 
Compare  with  it  that  of  a  speaker  who  stands  fully  in 
view,  and  presents  in  his  entire  person,  a  complete, 
graceful  example  of  this  crowning  glory  of  oratory. 
That  preachers,  exclusively,  should  be  thus  restricted 
in  elocution  is  but  a  prescription  of  arbitrary  tradi- 
tion :  nothing  in  the  peculiarity  of  spiritual  eloquence 
requires  it ;  it  maims  this  noblest  of  all  eloquences  ; 
it  presupposes  a  theory  of  preaching,  which  makes 
delivery  in  it  a  thing  of  little  or  no  moment ;  it  has 


200  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

doubtless  had  no  small  influence  in  reducing-  it  to  this 
estimation,  in  the  general  practice,  if  not  also  in  the 
opinion  of  the  pulpit.  If  in  the  pulpit  of  the  future, 
delivery  is  to  assume  its  rightful  supremacy,  tradition, 
in  this  matter,  will  dominate  no  longer  ;  the  princi- 
ples of  true  art,  which  are,  at  last,  but  the  principles 
of  simple  nature,  will  assert  their  authority ;  and 
preaching,  like  speaking  in  the  forum  or  the  senate, 
will  be  free  of  all  such  abridgments  of  elocutionary 
force  as  tradition  has  so  unwarrantably  prescribed 
to  it. 

20.  IS  IT  TO  BE  EXPECTED  THAT  THE  KEFORM  WILL 

actually  have  place?  A  change  in  the  form  of 
preaching  is  doubtless  at  hand.  The  renovating  power 
which  has  been  changing  all  things  in  science,  in  art, 
in  the  physical,  social  and  civil  life  of  man,  cannot  but 
be  felt,  indeed  has  manifestly  been  felt,  by  the  modern 
pulpit.  Already  preaching,  as  to  form,  is,  in  several 
respects,  different  from  what  it  has  ever  been.  In 
some  respects  we  think  it  is  better.  It  is  by  no  means 
changed  as  much  as  it  should  be.  It  ought  to  be  in 
advance  of  the  other  instruments  of  change  which  are 
exerting  themselves  with  such  astonishing  efficiency  in 
every  sphere  of  human  life.  There  is  no  object  of 
deeper  interest  to  every  true  philanthropist,  every  one 
who  identifies  the  progress  of  humanity  with  the  suc- 
cess of  the  gospel,  than  that  preaching  should  receive 
a  new  and  healthful  impulse,  which  shall  give  it  the 
precedence  to  which  it  is  entitled, — a  just  adaptation 
to  humanity  in  its  present  excited  and  over-active 
state,  and  a  regulating  power  of  all  the  changes  which 


BELT  VERY  IN  PRE 'ACHING.  201 

with  such  unparalleled  rapidity  are  coming  to  pass 
everywhere  in  the  world.  But  it  is  as  yet  very  far 
from  having'  this  pre-eminence  of  control.  There  is  an 
imperative  demand  for  farther  variance,  we  might 
almost  say  a  revolution  in  the  form  of  it.  And  is  not 
this  demand  to  be  met  ?  In  that  Future  of  over- 
whelming interest,  which  all  men  feel  to  be  just  before 
us,  which  indeed  is  now  opening  itself  upon  us  and  in- 
spiring us  with  wonder  at  what  is  surely  and  swiftly 
coming,  what  will  preaching  be,  if  accommodated,  as  it 
should  and  must  be  if  it  is  to  play  well  its  part — to 
the  unparalleled  circumstances  in  which  it  will  find 
itself?  Imperfect  as  our  anticipation  of  them  must 
be,  we  cannot  but  be  sure  in  general,  from  signs  before 
us,  that  they  will  be  circumstances  of  earnest,  intense 
materialism,  of  an  exceedingly  practical,  matter-of-fact 
bearing,  such  as  have  not  been  dreamt  of  in  all  the 
past ;  causes  are  already  in  operation  before  our  eyesr 
which  make  the  anticipation  of  this  almost  as  reality 
itself.  Surely  amidst  such  circumstances,  preaching, 
if  true  to  its  mission,  will  not  take  from  the  present 
or  any  former  period,  its  measures  or  its  methods  of 
practice.  There  must  be,  in  these  respects,  a  novelty 
in  it,  parallel,  or,  when  need  be,  antithetic  to  the 
novelty  of  its  unexampled  surroundings.  Its  character 
cannot  be  precisely  foreseen;  it  will  be,  we  would 
hope,  as  didactic,  as  discriminative,  as  solid,  in  all 
respects  as  scholarly,  as  it  has  been  at  any  time  ;  we 
cannot  but  hope  it  will  be  so  from  necessities  which 
will  be  upon  it,  and  from  its  present  advantages  of 
culture.  But  how  changed  must  it  be,  especially  in 
9* 


202  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

its  chief  performances,  in  respect  of  oratorical  free- 
dom, force  and  action?  It  cannot  but  be,  preeminently, 
it  would  seem,  of  the  nature  of  business — "  business 
which  is  a  business  :"*  It  will  still  treat  "  subjects  ;" 
but  it  will  need  to  treat  them,  not  as  terminating  in 
themselves,  or  in  the  way  of  analysis  or  disquisition, 
but  with  reference  to  issues  or  specific  ends  :  to  de- 
termine first,  not  on  either  texts  or  subjects,  but  on 
points  to  be  carried,  on  things  to  be  done  ;  and,  as  in 
all  earnest  oratory,  to  be,  in  all  its  propositions,  en- 
largements, utterances,  ornaments,  but  a  strenuous 
means  of  attaining  definite  ends  :  to  strive,  of  course, 
to  avail  itself  of  the  advantages  of  just  delivery,  the 
peerless  eloquence  of  appropriate  action.  This,  its 
chief  means,  it  may  no  longer  forego  or  neglect. 
Due  attention  to  delivery,  and  due  provision  for  it, 
will  be  a  deeply  felt  necessity.  It  will  suffer  no  tra- 
ditional trammels ;  it  will  folloAV  out  the  inviolable 
principles  of  eloquence;  it  will  obey  nature  and  the 
free  Spirit  of  God.  If  it  meet  the  high  exigencies  of 
the  epoch,  it  cannot  take  the  word  of  command  from 
tradition,  or  the  perfunctory  examples  of  these  or 
former  times. 

*  Preacher,  your  business  is  a  business ;  yet  more  than  Senators 
and  Advocates,  you  are  Advocates  and  Senators :  Be  both.  Let 
your  pulpits  be  to  you  alternately  a  tribune  and  a  bar  ;  let  your 
word  be  an  action  directed  to  an  immediate  object :  Let  not  your 
hearers  come  to  hear  a  discourse,  so  much  as  to  receive  a  message. 
Possess  yourselves,  possess  them,  of  all  the  advantages,  which 
pertain  to  the  subjects  of  the  pulpit.  Your  eloquence  has  more 
artless  aspects,  and  more  vivid  tints,  than  that  of  the  Senate  or 
the  Bar  ;  nothing  condemns  it  to  abstraction  ;  everytJiing  impels  it 
toicard  senxilile  facts." — Vinet,  p.  503. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREAVII1NG.  20:3 

21.   But  will   the   change   after   all   have  place? 
Will  delivery  in   the  preaching  of  the  all-pregnant 
future,  whose  dawn  is  already  advancing,   have  its 
rightful  pre-eminence  ?     Will  this  form  of  preaching, 
which  cannot  but  be  new,  be  what  it  should  be,  in  this 
grand  respect  ?   Or  will  the  construction  of  the  sermon 
continue  to  be  the  all-absorbing  concern  of  preachers 
and  its  delivery  comparatively  as  nothing  ?     We  can- 
not confidently  say.     The  undervaluation  of  delivery 
at  the  present  moment,  and  too  generally  in  foregoing 
times,  in  view  of  its  inherent  unjustness  and  the  stand- 
ing reprobation  of  it  by  the  reason  of  things  and  the 
verdict  of  the  human  mind,  begets  hesitation  as  to  the 
probability  of  a  correction  of  it,  under  the  influence  of 
any  possible  circumstances  ;  and  yet  since  it  has  pleased 
God  to  institute  preaching  as  the  leading  instrumen- 
tality, the  means  of  means,  in  applying  his  efficacious 
grace,  must  not  "  the  wickedness  of  the  wicked  "  rush 
on  to  its  climax  and  its  doom,  if  the  correction  shall 
not    take    place?      In   a  practice  of    preaching  so 
wrong,  so  utterly  ineloquent,  in  the  thing  of  chief  mo- 
ment, as  that  now  generally  prevailing,  will  the  Spirit 
of  God  who  can  give  no  sanction   to   inherent  im- 
propriety of  any  sort,  work  with  that  plentitude  of  His 
power,  which  will  be  necessary  to  write  "  holiness  to 
the   Lord,"  on  such  inventions   and   aboundings    of 
secular  life,  as  those  which  we  already  see  in  such 
rapid  progress  must  become  in  their  culmination  ?    As, 
then,  no  change  is  to  be  expected  in  God's  plan  for 
reducing  men  to  obedience  to  Himself,  must  not  the 
change  we  are  speaking  of  in  preaching  be  a  reality 


20-i  DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING. 

at  length,  if  the  triumph  of  the  gospel  on  earth  is  to 
be  a  reality  ? 

22.  And  why  should  it  not  be  inaugukated  at 
once?  The  very  occasion  for  it  presupposes  a  high 
existing  culpability  in  the  ministers  of  the  word.  No 
tongue  can  express  the  evil  of  delivering  Christian 
truths  as  if  they  were  fictions.  As  far  as  preachers 
are  chargeable  with  this  evil,  they  have  cause  for  the 
deepest  humiliation.  Next  to  counting  Christ  Himself 
a  myth,  nay  identical  with  it  in  effect,  is  so  represent- 
ing His  doctrine.  What  infidelity  whether  in  itself  or 
in  its  consequences  is  worse?  We  know  it  is  pleading 
for  a  paradox  to  insist  on  the  reform,  as  an  immediate 
necessity ;  but  if  a  paradox  be  true  and  the  truth  im- 
portant, these  facts  imply  criminality  in  its  being  a 
paradox,*  and  imperatively  require  that  it  be  so  no 
longer.  Think  of  it  as  we  may,  the  prevailing  way  of 
delivery,  in  preaching,  is  matter  for  the  profoundest 
regret  to  the  ministry  and  the  church.  Whether  it  is  to 
remain  in  the  coming  times  or  not,  it  should,  for  the 
sake  of  the  times  now  present,  from  henceforth  cease, 
or  cease  to  be  excused  or  tolerated.  Infinite  interests 
demand  that  the  reform  begin  without  delay. 

23.  Let  not  the  change  seem  impracticable.  No 
circumstances,  no  powers  of  argument  or  persuasion, 
can  of  themselves  effect  it ;  these  can  produce  no 
spiritual  fruit  whatever  ;  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
the  highest  perfection  of  this  kind  of  fruit ;  but  there 
is  on  this  account  no  cause  for  discouragement.  The 
power  to  be  ultimately  relied  on,  in  the  whole  business 

*  Paradox — Something  against  prevailing  opinion. 


DELIVERY  IN  PREACHING.  205 

of  preaching,  is  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is 
the  privilege,  it  is  the  duty,  of  preachers,  to  be  full  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  workers  together  with  Him  in 
every  part  of  their  labor.  The  chief  thing,  the  only 
thing  virtually  necessary  to  the  change,  is  what  they 
cannot  be  wanting  in,  without  sinning  alike  against 
themselves  and  against  the  highest  law  of  their  func- 
tion, the  law  of  all  its  laws.  Remembering  the  Divine- 
Human  character  of  preaching,  let  them  rise  above 
themselves,  as  they  should  and  may  without  presump- 
tion, into  the  illuminations  and  sanctities  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit ;  and  over  all  difficulties  connected  with  the 
cultivation  and  practice  of  just  delivery  in  preaching 
they  will  be  already  triumphant.  And  if  they  live  to 
be  preachers  in  the  opening  Future  they  will  pass  into 
it  prepared  for  its  eventful  activities  and  develop- 
ments ;  and  whether  they  live  or  die,  under  the  con- 
sciousness of  their  new  impulses  and  experiences,  they 
will  well  fulfill  what  remains  of  their  sacred  mission  ; 
and  for  that  part  of  it,  at  least,  be  able  to  endure  the 
fiery  ordeal  through  which  every  preacher's  work,  with 
himself,  will  have  to  pass  in  the  judgment  of  the  great 
day  of  the  Lord. 


IX. 

FRAGMENTS  OF  THOUGHT 


I.— OPTIMISM. 

If  there  be  several  courses  of  action  claiming  our 
choice,  some  better  than  others,  and  one  best  of  all, 
goodness  obliges  us  to  prefer  this  last  to  all  the  others ; 
goodness  were  otherwise  disowned,  in  so  far  as  it 
stands  in  the  best  above  what  it  does  in  the  better  and 
the  simply  good — for  all  that  is  goodness  which  differ- 
ences the  good  from  the  best.  Here,  in  brief,  is 
the  demonstration  of  Optimism.  Optimism  is  true,  if 
goodness  may  not  be  disallowed  ;  if  the  difference 
may  not  pass  for  nothing  between  good,  better,  and 
best. 

It  may  be  that  a  better  than  either  of  the  solicitors 
of  choice  is  a  negation  of  them  all ;  doing  nothing,  let- 
ting the  several  courses  remain  ideal  only,  may  be 
better  than  to  actualize  the  best  of  them,  which,  in  that 
case,  were  to  obey  the  behest  of  Optimism.  Absolute 
quietism,  the  latency  of  power,  would  then  be  the  ex- 
pression of  Optimism. 
(206) 


OPTIMISM.  207 

Applying  this  to  the  Deity,  the  existence  of  the 
world  is  proof  that  Optimism  did  not  demand  the  in- 
ertia or  latency  of  creative  power.  The  rule  of  the 
best  required  this  power  to  reveal  itself  in  an  actual 
creation.  A  world  was  a  necessity,  if  Optimism  was 
to  be  determinative.  God  would  not  have  realized 
His  own  idea,  or  done  what  seemed  to  Him  best,  had 
He  not  given  existence  to  a  creation  external  to  Him- 
self. 

And  the  same  principle  of  necessity  required  that 
the  creation  be  that  which  came  into  being — that,  and 
not  another.  He  could  not  have  given  existence 
to  another  without  disowning  goodness,  for  goodness, 
in  His  idea,  stood  in  this  creation  above  itself  in  any 
other  ;  there  was  no  ideal  creation,  different  from  this 
that  seemed  to  Him  so  good.  The  existing  world, 
therefore,  and  not  another  must  have  been  created. 
This  world  was  a  moral  necessity. 

And  as  with  its  creation,  so  likewise  with  its  econo- 
my or  government — the  rule  of  the  best  could  not  but 
obtain.  Among  conceivable  economies  different  from 
one  another,  as  to  goodness,  the  perfection  and  bless- 
edness of  the  Deity  required  Him  to  take  the  best. 
The  All-Perfect,  whose  moral  essence  is  pure  goodness, 
could  have  been  content  with  no  other. 

Since,  therefore,  evil  exists,  the  best  world,  under 
the  best  government,  was  one  in  which  this  was  pos- 
sible ;  and  Optimism,  the  antitheton  of  evil,  consists 
with  this  possibility.  But  the  possibility  of  evil  is  not 
its  reality  ;  there  may  be  a  prevention  of  the  latter, 
though  the  former  may  have  place.     And  goodness 


208  OPTIMISM. 

self-evidently  demands  its  prevention,  if  this  be  pos- 
sible. This  is  true  ;  still,  the  preventive  agency,  as 
much  as  the  creative  and  controlling,  must  abide  under 
the  sway  of  Optimism.  That  only  which  is  best  may 
be  done  to  prevent  the  appearance  of  evil.  The  pos- 
sibility of  preventing  it,  therefore,  is  thus  conditioned. 
It  cannot  be  prevented  without  offending  against  good- 
ness, if  it  be  not  preventable  by  the  best  agency  that 
can  be  employed  for  the  purpose.  There  is  a  good,  a 
better,  and  a  best,  in  conceivable  agencies,  in  this  case  ; 
the  idea  of  the  best  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Deity.  He 
could  have  given  reality  to  no  other  idea.  Evil  is  not 
to  be  prevented,  indeed  is  not  preventable,  by  a  viola- 
tion of  the  principle  of  Optimism.  That,  itself,  were 
greater  evil,  virtually,  than  the  evil  it  would  prevent ; 
it  would  undeify  God. 

The  same  necessity,  the  dominion  of  the  best,  holds 
as  to  the  remedy  or  removal  of  evil.  If  there  had 
been  in  the  Divine  Mind,  a  kind  or  plan  of  agency 
better  than  that  which  God  has  employed,  it  would 
have  taken  the  place  of  this.  If  the  direct  interven- 
tion of  physical  power,  or  arbitrary  volition,  or  aught 
else,  had  been  better,  this  would  not  have  been  pre- 
ferred ;  Optimism  would  have  prevailed  here,  also  : 
the  remedy,  otherwise,  would  have  been  worse,  virtu- 
ally, than  the  evil. 

Optimism,  then,  the  law,  the  prevalence  of  the  Best, 
is  the  principle  of  the  Divine  goodness  in  the  Universe. 
Nothing  asserts  its  own  truth  with  higher  evidence 
than  this  proposition.  To  deny  it,  is  to  set  goodness 
against  itself;  to  deny  it,  when  its  terms  are  under- 


OPTIMISM.  209 

stood,  would  seem  to  imply  an  intention  to  affirm  a 
contradiction. 

In  connection  with  the  above,  it  is  edifying  to  note 
some  results  of  other  applications  of  the  doctrine  of 
Optimism. 

It  condemns  wishing  that  the  world  did  not  exist. 
Among  human  wishes,  two  have  been  not  a  little  pro- 
minent :  that  there  were  no  Creation,  and  that  there 
were  no  God.  Both  would  abolish  goodness — the  for- 
mer the  realization  of  the  ideal  of  finite  goodness  ; 
the  latter,  Infinite  goodness  itself.  Let  the  reasons 
for  these  wishes  be  recalled  ;  in  what  reproach  do 
they  implicate  their  authors  ! 

Again,  it  challenges,  in  God's  behalf,  the  highest 
praise  of  His  creatures.  It  assures  them  that  the  best 
of  worlds  exists  under  the  best  of  administrations,  and 
the  best  agencies  for  preventing  and  remedying  evil. 
How  urgent  the  demand  for  praise,  such  as  that  which 
is  made  in  the  last  three  of  the  Psalms!  and  how  un- 
worthy and  unhappy  the  spirit  of  those  who  refuse  to 
meet  this  demand  ! 

Once  more  :  it  is  the  absolute  reprobation  of  sin.  It 
is,  by  its  name,  the  opposite  of  evil.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  preference  of  the  greatest  good  which  sin  would 
destroy.  It  announces  that  when  a  world  was  to  be 
created,  the  best  of  all  worlds  was  determined  on  ;  the 
same  preference  of  the  best  in  establishing  a  govern- 
ment over  the  world  ;  the  same  in  preventing,  and  the 
same  in  remedying  evil.  Let  men  believe  and  obey 
Optimism,  and  they  could  bear  no  sin  in  themselves, 
and  omit  to  use  no  proper  means  in  expelling  it  from 


210  OPTIMISM. 

the  world.  Applied  to  human  life,  Optimism  is  the 
same  as  in  other  applications  of  it.  It  requires  men 
to  adopt  the  bc?t  plan  of  life,  to  do  all  the  good  pos- 
sible to  them,  and  to  improve  perfectly  all  their  pow- 
ers, opportunities  and  means  in  diffusing  good. 


II.— THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES. 

The  purposes  of  the  Divine  mind,  though  without 
succession  in  time,  have  a  relation  to  each  other  to 
which  the  order  of  their  fulfilment  correlates  and 
agrees.  And  as  events  have  their  reason  or  justifi- 
cation in  the  order  in  which  they  occur,  so  have  the 
Divine  Purposes  theirs,  in  their  order  or  relation  to 
each  other.  The  particular  purposes  which  eventuated 
in  the  exercises  of  creative  power,  depended  on  the 
prime  purpose  to  create  ;  those  which  the  scheme  of 
redemption  fulfilled,  depended  on  the  purpose  to  re- 
deem ;  and  the  particular  purposes  themselves  were 
also  interdependent,  requiring  and  required  by  one 
another.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  comprehend  a 
Timeless  order  or  relation;  but  as  a  reality  it  is  not 
less  certain  to  us  than  the  existence  of  the  Deity,  to 
whom,  as  infinite  or  eternal,  time,  with  its  successions 
and  changes,  is  wholly  and  necessarily  objective  or 
extrinsic.  The  inward  activities  of  the  Divine  Nature 
are  eternally  immanent ;  but  its  very  idea,  as  all  per- 
fect, requires  that  there  be  in  these  activities  an  abso- 
lutely perfect  order  ;  and  to  suppose  that  any  one  of 
them  may  have  no  reference  or  relation  to  any  or 
every  other,  is  to  make  the  Supreme  Being  God  no 
longer. 

Proper  regard  to  the  fact  of  Timeless  order  or 

(211) 


213  THE   DIVINE  PURPOSES. 

inter-relation,  in  the  Purposes  of  God,  is  indispensable 
to  all  just  thinking  concerning  the  relation  between 
these  Purposes  and.  the  Divine  ways  or  conduct.  The 
ways  of  God  pertain  to  the  sphere  of  time  or  the 
finite  ;  His  purposes  exist  in  the  infinite,  or  are  time- 
less. If  the  latter  fact  be  not  kept  in  mind, — if  the 
Divine  Purposes  and  the  Divine  Ways  are  regarded, 
as  in  the  same  category  as  to  time, — the  same  predica- 
tions will  be  made  of  both,  the  distinction,  in  state- 
ment and  discourse,  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite, 
will  be  lost,  and  nothing  but  the  finite  will  remain. 
The  Divine  Mind  will  be  conceived  of  as  but  a  mag- 
nified human  one,  having  a  like  beginning  and  ending, 
a  like  fore  and  after,  a  like  capacity  of  growth  and 
decrease,  in  its  inherent  activity,  with  the  mind  of 
man  ; — with  no  other  difference  than  that  of  enlarge- 
ment to  an  indefinite  extent.  Thus  eternity  becomes 
but  a  longer  time ;  the  infinite  but  a  multitude  of 
fmites  ;  and  the  world,  in  its  vicissitudes,  an  exponent 
of  purposes,  springing  up  and  disappearing,  in  the 
mind  of  its  Maker,  one  after  another,  in  time,  accord- 
ing to  the  Time-order  which  has  place  in  the  course 
of  events.  Whence, — since  time,  in  the  purpose,  must 
antecede  it  in  events, — a  Fatalism,  in  all  things,  de- 
structive of  the  foundations  of  piety  and  virtue,  and 
implying  that  there  is,  in  truth,  no  such  Being  as  an 
infinite  and  good  God.  It  is  incidental  to  the  im- 
perfections of  human  language,  that  in  speaking  of 
events,  and  the  Divine  Purposes,  in  their  connection 
with  one  another,  we  sometimes  apply  terms  to  the 
latter  which  are  strictly  appropriate  only  to  temporal 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES.  213 

things  ;  but  such  anthropomorphisms  must  be  carefully 
excluded  when  we  would  make  precise  statements  of 
truth  concerning  the  Nature  of  the  Deity  ;  otherwise 
we  shall  make  the  Eternal  and  the  Infinite  altogether 
such  a  one  as  ourselves.* 

Let  then  the  Ways  of  God,  or  events,  be  thought 
of  as  they  are,  and  in  the  proper  sphere.  If  now  they 
commend  themselves  to  right  reason,  when  we  pass  to 
the  Divine  Purposes,  of  which  they  are  the  develop- 
ment, we  shall  find  nothing  here  to  vary  their  charac- 
ter, since  this  is  the  sphere  of  the  infinite  or  timeless, 
in  which  there  is  no  succession,  no  fore  nor  after, 
nothing  to  come  into  thought  except  the  Divine  Pur- 
poses themselves  as  existing  in  their  eternal  relations 
to  one  another.  Of  these  purposes,  with  their  inter- 
relations, the  Divine  ways  are  the  expression.  If,  as 
thus  expressed,  they  cannot  be  objected  to,  there  is  no 
ground  of  objection  to  them.  The  ways  of  God  are 
justified,  and  equally  so  are  His  purposes.  The  justi- 
fication of  the  former  is  the  justification  of  both.  If, 
in  all  places  of  His  dominion,  the  works  of  God 
praise  Him,  so  likewise  do  His  purposes,  of  which  His 
works  are  the  execution. 

The  principle  of  identity,  as  to  their  justification, 

*  An  infinite  length  of  Time,  distinguished  by  successive 
parts,  properly  and  truly  so,  or  a  succession  of  limited  and  un- 
measurable  periods  of  Time,  following  one  another  in  an  infinite- 
ly long  series,  must  needs  be  a  groundless  imagination.  The 
eternity  of  God's  existence  is  nothing  else  but  his  immediate, 
perfect;  and  invariable  possession  of  the  whole  of  His  unlimited 
Life,  together  and  at  once :  Vitae  interminabilis,  tota,  simul,  ct 
perfecta  possessio. — Edwards. 


214  THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES. 

between  the  Ways  and  Purposes  of  God,  is  specially 
important  in  its  application  to  the  determination  of 
the  Divine  Mind  respecting  the  final  destinies  of  man- 
kind. With  very  special  explicitness  and  emphasis  is 
the  connection  declared  in  Scripture  between  the 
agency  and  the  purposes  of  God  in  this  high  matter. 
Equally  explicit  and  emphatic  is  the  verification  of 
the  Biblical  word  by  the  facts  of  history  and  expe- 
rience. In  the  sphere  of  human  knowledge  nothing 
is  exhibited  in  a  more  outstanding  and  prominent 
manner  than  this  connection.  Manifestly  and  palpa- 
bly it  has  been  the  design  of  God  to  set  this  connec- 
tion forth  to  the  view  of  mankind,  so  as  to  leave  no 
place  for  reasonable  doubt  concerning  it.  Among  a 
multitude  of  inspired  testimonies  relating  to  this  sub- 
ject, see  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans, and  the  words  of  our  Lord  in  Mat.  xi.  25-27. 
If  the  agency  and  the  purpose  of  God,  in  this  respect, 
have  one  and  the  same  vindication,  there  is  herein,  as 
we  shall  see,  no  cause  for  stumbling  or  dissatisfaction 
with  the  latter. 

Let  His  agency,  in  part,  be  considered.  First,  He 
makes  an  atonement,  by  the  sacrifice  of  His  Son, 
for  the  sins  of  all  mankind  ;  the  greatest  of  all  the 
wonders  of  His  goodness.  Next,  through  the  virtue 
of  this  atonement.  He  introduces  His  Spirit  into  the 
world  as  the  renewer  and  sanctifier  of  human  nature, — 
the  next  greatest  of  His  mercies.  Then  in  direct  con- 
nection with  these  mighty  doings  of  infinite  goodness, 
the  proclamation  of  grace  is  made  indiscriminately  to 
all.     Added  to  these,  a  system  of  suasory  appliances 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES.  215 

is  appointed,  in  which  the  Spirit  strives  with  men 
with  an  urgency  which  forbears  nothing  but  compul- 
sion. Finally,  after  resistance  on  the  part  of  all,  not 
to  be  overcome  by  all  these  amazing  measures  of 
Divine  love,  a  discrimination  appears  ;  the  inward 
work  of  the  Spirit  is  wrought  in  some,  and  not 
wrought  in  others  ;  the  former  receive  the  atonement, 
and  are  saved  ;  the  others  continue  to  reject  it,  and 
perish. 

Such  are  the  "Ways  of  God  in  their  order.  Ex- 
cepting the  final  one,  unquestionably  they  demand 
adoring  praise  and  wonder  ;  and  as  to  the  exception, 
the  discrimination  of  sovereignty,  what  but  blasphemy 
can  ask,  "  What  doest  Thou  ?"  Either  God  must  per- 
form the  inward  work  of  His  Spirit  in  whom  He  will 
perform  it,  or  perform  it  in  all,  or  consign  all  to  de- 
struction. Excluding  the  last,  the  choice  lies  between 
the  other  two.  The  demand  that  He  do  the  second 
were  impious  ;  for  who  knows  that  He  would  not,  by 
doing  it,  dishonor  Himself,  and  so  destroy  the  happi- 
ness of  the  universe  ?  The  first,  therefore,  remains  as 
the  only  alternative :  God  must  exercise  His  preroga- 
tive of  showing  mercy,  in  this  form,  to  whom  it  seems 
best  to  Himself  to  show  it. 

In  doing  this,  it  is  denying  His  Deity  to  suppose 
that  He  acts  without  a  sufficient  reason.  What  the 
reason  is  we  know  not,  and  doubtless  can  never  fully 
know  ;  nor  have  we  a  right  to  demand  the  reason  ; 
nor  is  it  certain  that  the  knowledge  of  it  would  be 
for  our  advantage.  But  in  ignorance  of  the  reason, 
we  know  enough  to  command  our  praise.    The  objects 


216  THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES. 

of  the  Divine  preference,  it  is  true,  are  not  always 
those  human  wisdom  would  have  selected.  There  are 
not  many  mighty,  or  noble,  or  wise  ones  of  the  world 
among  them.  But  three  facts  are  certain  to  us  :  First, 
not  one  of  the  human  race  can  claim  to  be  preferred 
for  the  sake  of  anything  in  or  done  by  himself,  or  on 
the  ground  of  compliance  with  conditions,  there  being 
no  such  compliance  before  the  choice  goes  into  effect. 
Secondly,  the  Divine  agency  generally  exerts  itself, 
not  in  the  absence  of  proper  activities,  whether  on  the 
part  of  the  chosen,  or  of  others  on  their  behalf,  but 
on  the  contrary,  in  the  midst  of  such  activities,  and 
so  as  to  encourage  and  stimulate  them  in  the  highest 
degree.  And  thirdly,  the  perfection  of  the  Divine 
Character  makes  it  certain  that  there  is  nothing 
which  should  have  influence  on  the  determination  of 
the  mind  of  God,  which  has  not  this  influence  on  it 
in  its  precise  measure  and  weight.  Such  is  the  Divine 
agency  in  reference  to  the  heirs  of  salvation. 

In  respect  to  the  others,  there  is  one  essential  point 
of  difference  as  to  the  reason  of  the  Divine  determi- 
nation. We  have  important  knowledge  as  to  this 
reason  ;  it  lies  in  something  within  themselves.  The 
elect  are  not  elected  because  of  any  goodness  of  their 
own.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  sin,  wilful,  persistent,  in- 
corrigible sin  in  themselves,  that  the  others  are  repro- 
bated. God  waits  to  be  gracious  to  them,  until  to 
wait  longer  is  forbidden  by  goodness  itself.  They  fill 
up  the  measure  of  their  iniquity  ;  justice  performs  its 
strange  work  upon  them  ;  they  are  abandoned  to  their 
own  wilfulness  ;    they  are  judicially  hardened,  and 


THE  DI  VINE  P  URPOSES.  217 

sealed  to  the  day  of  perdition.  Such  is  the  Divine 
conduct  ;  it  is  its  own  vindication.  According  to 
what  has  been  demonstrated,  there  is  no  difference  as 
to  vindication  between  this  conduct  and  the  eternal 
purpose  which  it  fullfils. 

Aversion  is  often  expressed,  and  doubtless,  oftener 
felt,  towards  the  doctrine  of  God's  purposes.  But 
nothing  is  more  unreasonable  than  this  aversion, 
nothing  of  higher  importance  than  the  doctrine  which 
provokes  it.  The  world  needs  to  know  that  there  is 
no  chance,  no  place  for  chance,  in  the  dominions  of  its 
Almighty  Maker  aud  Sovereign.  That  all  things  are 
moving  forward  under  the  direction  of  an  intelligence, 
a  will,  and  a  goodness  which  secures  their  infallible 
convergence  and  consummation  in  their  appointed  end, 
is  no  less  certain  than  that  God  exists,  and  no  less 
necessary  than  this,  as  a  foundation  for  human  hope 
and  peace. 

10 


III.— MYSTERY. 

In  the  idea  of  God,  the  world,  comprising  an  im- 
mense variety  of  parts,  is  an  absolute  unit  or  whole. 
As  a  whole,  it  is  what  it  is  from  the  relation  and 
unition  of  its  parts,  one  with  another  ;  and  each  of 
its  parts  is  what  it  is  from  its  membership  with  the 
whole  ;  all  its  antecedents,  concomitants  and  sequent?, 
and  their  interdependence  on  one  another,  contribute 
to  give  it  its  individuality.  I  am  what  I  am,  and 
everything  in  me,  and  pertaining  to  me,  is  what  it  is, 
from  an  exigency  in  the  organism  of  the  Universe, 
which  acts  upon  me,  and  upon  which,  in  some  measure, 
I  reciprocally  act ;  whence  it  follows  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  comprehend  any,  the  least  part  of  the  world, 
without  ability  to  comprehend  the  entire  world.  I 
can  no  more  understand  why  I  am  what  I  am,  or  why 
my  bodily  configuration,  or  size,  or  temperament,  or 
any  part  of  me,  is  distinctively  what  it  is,  than  why 
the  sum  of  existence,  comprising  the  various  worlds 
and  creatures  which  make  it  up,  is  the  aggregate  of 
these,  instead  of  others  in  their  place. 

And  as  with  the  creation,  so  likewise  with  Provi- 
dence, the  management  of  the  creation  ;  ability  to  com- 
prehend the  whole,  is  the  indispensable  condition  of 
comprehending  any  part.  The  plan  of  Providence  is 
also  a  unit.    The  purposes  of  the  Infinite  Mind,  though 

(218) 


MYSTERY.  219 

they  do  not  begin  and  end  like  ours,  exist  in  an  order 
in  which  they  are  related,  one  to  all  the  others,  and 
these  to  that,  at  the  demand  of  absolute  unity  or  sys- 
tem. The  purpose  which  now  goes  into  effect  has 
fitting  respect  to  every  other  Divine  purpose,  and  is 
what  it  is,  from  its  being  an  integrant  in  a  system  of 
purposes,  or  in  one  comprehensive  and  all-controlling 
purpose.  The  dispensations  of  Providence,  and  all 
particular  acts  and  arrangements  under  them,  imply 
one  another  ;  so  that  the  indispensable  prerequisite 
of  comprehending  anything  whatever  in  the  course 
of  Providence  is  a  complete  knowledge  of  everything 
included  in  the  entire  scheme  of  Providence. 

And  if  God's  works  be  mysterious  to  us,  how  much 
more  His  Nature !  A  Being  who  exists,  not  by  will, 
but  of  necessity  ;  whose  non-existence  is  an  impossi- 
bility even  to  omnipotence  ;  in  whom  nothing  begins 
or  ends  ;  the  very  idea  of  whom  excludes  time,  with 
all  its  successions  and  changes  ;  to  whom  nothing  is 
new  or  old  ;  absolutely  free,  yet  whose  choices  and 
affections  are  eternally  immanent  and  the  same — how 
far  must  such  a  Being  transcend  forever  the  utmost 
reach  of  finite  thought !  There  are,  it  is  true,  certain 
predications  which  we  may  make  concerning  Him, 
assuming  that  certain  perfections  belong  to  Him,  with 
which  we  are  acquainted.  If  He  is  wise,  and  just, 
and  good,  since  we  know  the  qualities  which  these 
terms  express,  we  know  that  He  is  incapable  of  every- 
thing self-evidently  the  opposite  of  them  ;  nay,  more, 
we  know  that  He  cannot  but  prefer  a  greater  to  a 
less  good  :   he  cannot  disown  the  principle  of  Optim- 


220  MYSTEBY. 

ism.  But  beyond  such  inevitable  intuitions,  wc  can, 
of  ourselves,  neither  affirm  nor  deny  anything  as  to 
the  contents,  or  capabilities,  or  requisitions  of  His 
infinite  Nature.  Not  even  through  a  revelation  from 
Himself,  however  perfect,  can  we  ever  know  more 
than  a  part  of  what  He  is,  and  a  part  less  than  nothing, 
compared  to  what  remains. 

To  creatures,  therefore,  mystery  in  the  ways  of  God 
is  and  ever  will  be  a  necessity.  What  the  greatest 
good  required,  what  world,  what  order  of  creatures, 
what  disposition  of  them,  what  revelations  of  Himself 
and  of  Truth,  what  plans  and  acts  of  Providence  were 
necessary  to  the  realization  of  this  good,  only  God 
Himself  could  know.  If  an  intelligence,  large  as  He 
could  have  created,  be  supposed  to  have  existed  when 
He  was  about  to  begin  His  works,  it  could  have  had 
no  anticipation  of  the  first  or  any  other  one  of  these  ; 
or  have  conjectured  any  single  step  of  an  agency 
which  was  to  move  under  the  direction  of  perfect  fore- 
knowledge of  all  the  possibilities,  contingencies  and 
futuritions  embraced  in  the  scheme  of  operations  from 
beginning  to  end.  How  utterly  ignorant  must  it 
have  been,  as  to  what  should  be  the  limit  of  the  Crea- 
tion, or  whether  in  time  it  should  have  a  limit ;  or, 
whether  such  orders  of  creatures  as  the  angelic  and 
human  should  be  brought  into  being — or  if  so,  how 
related  to  each  other ;  whether  there  should  have 
been  such  a  pre-Adamite  earth  as  that  which  preceded 
the  creation  of  man  ;  or,  what  constitution  of  things 
man  should  be  put  under  ;  or,  in  the  event  of  his  fall, 
what  thereafter  behooved  to  be  done  through    the 


MYSTERY.  221 


progress  of  time,  until  the  final  consummation  !  How 
forcible  on  this  point  the  questions  put  to  Job,  by  the 
Almighty  Himself,  out  of  the  whirlwind ! 

Nor  is  it  in  any  respect  to  our  disadvantage,  or,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  inconsistent  with  Optimism,  that 
the  ways  of  God  should  be  a  mystery  to  us.  On  the 
contrary,  mystery  is  itself  one  of  the  means  of  the 
greatest  good — an  indispensable  means.  That  God 
should  be  evermore,  both  in  Himself  and  as  to  the  full 
significance  of  His  works— deus  absconditus— a  God 
who  hideth  Himself  from  us,  is  essential  to  our  highest 
good.  It  is  to  His  own  glory,  and  therefore  to  our 
advantage,  that  He  remain  for  ever  unsearchable  and 
past  finding  out  to  perfection.  He  were  no  longer  a 
God  to  us  if  He  were  not  to  our  apprehension  the 
Incomprehensible  ;  the  infinite  would  be  no  more.  It 
is  not  the  part  of  true  science,  it  is  the  renuncia- 
tion alike  of  reason  and  of  piety,  to  stumble  at  mys- 
tery. The  highest  illumination,  the  profoundest 
philosophy,  the  greatest  virtue  and  happiness  of  a 
creature  is  attained,  when,  with  an  adoring  sense  of 
the  unfathomable  Being  and  counsels  of  God,  he  can 
utter  from  the  lowest  depths  of  his  soul  such  words  as 
these  of  the  humble  Psalmist :  "  Lord,  my  heart  is  not 
haughty,  nor  mine  eyes  lofty  ;  neither  do  I  exercise 
myself  in  great  matters,  nor  in  tilings  too  high  for 
me.  Surely  I  have  behaved  and  quieted  myself,  as  a 
child  that  is  weaned  from  his  mother  ;  my  soul  is  even 
as  a  weaned  child." 


IV— HAPPINESS. 

Among  objects,  ideal  or  real,  some  are  pleasing, 
some  only  unpleasing  or  painful.  The  latter,  for 
their  own.  sake,  cannot  be  desired  or  regarded  as 
good.  If  they  are  ideal  merely,  goodness  forbids 
their  becoming  real ;  if  they  are  real,  it  requires  their 
destruction.  Only  the  possibility  that  good  ulterior 
to  themselves  may  be  educed  from  them,  can  make 
their  actuality  consistent  with  the  dominion  of  good- 
ness. Objects  which  only  give  pain,  apart  from  the 
possibility  of  their  being  in  some  way  made  useful, 
are  simply  noxious.  There  can  be  no  such  objects,  in 
reality,  under  the  requisition  of  goodness  ;  they  can 
exist  only  in  idea. 

If  things  simply  and  absolutely  painful  might  be 
supposed  to  be  good  in  themselves,  their  realization 
were  not  to  be  desired.  But  such  things  are  not  in 
themselves  good.  Even  the  sublime  goodness,  which 
suffered  in  the  Person  of  Christ,  would  not  have  been 
goodness  if  it  was  to  have  had  no  fruit  of  goodness, 
or  if  its  sufferings  had  terminated  in  themselves. 
Better  would  it  have  been,  on  that  supposition,  that 
they  had  never  been  a  reality.  They  were,  in  truth, 
not  good — not  in  any  view  desirable. 

It  is  thus  manifest  that  goodness  presupposes  good 
(222) 


HAPPINESS.  223 

ill  its  ultimation  ;  to  be  goodness,  it  must  tend  to  and 
result  in  good,  or  have  its  fruit  unto  happiness.  That 
is  not  goodness  which  in  itself,  and  its  uses  or  results, 
is  pure  and  permanent  unhappiness.  The  estate  and 
the  fruit  of  goodness  may  be  unhappy  for  a  time, 
through  its  own  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  good,  or 
the  abuse  it  receives  from  its  enemies  ;  but  that  good- 
ness should  in  no  way  and  at  no  time  result  in  happi- 
ness, or  in  less  happiness  than  it  foregoes  or  denies 
itself,  is  a  contradiction  ;  and  this,  in  principle,  pro- 
portions the  value  of  goodness  to  its  utility  or  fruit- 
fulness  in  happiness.  The  tree  of  goodness,  as  our 
Lord  taught,  is  known  by  its  fruits  ;  fruits  of  absolute 
unhappiness  or  pain  for  its  own  sake,  show  that  the 
tree  which  produces  them  is  not  a  good  one ;  the 
greater  the  fruits  of  happiness,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  more  excellent  the  tree. 

The  manner  of  the  connection  of  happiness  with 
goodness,  or  how  the  latter  is  to  result  in  the  former, 
is  not  always  obvious  ;  as  far  as  can  be  seen,  there  is, 
perhaps,  no  mode  in  which  the  two  can  be  conjoined  ; 
nevertheless  goodness  assumes  the  absolute  and  final 
disconnection  to  be  impossible :  goodness  trusts  in 
itself  as  the  principle  or  agent  of  good  ;  has  the  as- 
surance of  faith  where  sight  is  denied  it,  as  to  its 
appropriate  ultimation  ;  anticipates  the  advance  of 
happiness,  as  the  end  of  its  painful  sacrifices,  when 
these  it  is  called  to  make.  Amidst  its  greatest  suf- 
ferings, compensatory  joy  is  set  before  it  ;  it  casts  its 
bread  upon  the  waters,  assured  of  receiving  it  again 
after  many  days,  if  not  sooner  ;   it  does  not  doubt, 


224  HAPPINESS. 

when  it  goes  forth  and  weeps,  bearing  precious  seed, 
that  it  shall  come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  its 
sheaves  with  it :  applying  the  most  "  crucial "  of 
tests  to  it,  it  will  be  found  to  have  happiness,  its  own 
or  others,  as  its  ultimate  end. 

The  doctrine  that  goodness  has  utility  or  happiness 
for  its  principle  and  last  end,  cannot  be  reproached, 
without  first  doing  an  injury  to  happiness,  by  discon- 
necting its  idea  from  that  of  goodness  and  setting  it 
forth  in  this  dishonorable  isolation.  The  two  ideas, 
in  truth,  are  neither  separate  nor  separable.  As  good- 
ness must  comprehend  happiness,  virtually,  in  order 
to  be  goodness,  so  happiness,  in  its  chief  element,  is 
goodness  itself.  Not  only  is  the  good  man  the  only 
happy  one,  but  it  is  his  goodness,  more  than  aught 
else,  that  makes  him  happy.  Goodness,  for  goodness 
and  happiness'  sake,  may  suffer  pain  ;  but  while  it 
thereby  advances  itself,  it  is  potential  happiness,  in  an 
equal  degree,  to  its  subject  and  others.  In  this  view 
of  happiness  our  Lord  appears  transcendent  in  it, 
above  all  others,  in  the  extremity  of  His  passion.  In 
a  full  view  of  His  estate,  there  was  not,  out  of  the 
sphere  of  the  Infinite,  one  as  happy  as  He  was  amidst 
the  overwhelming  flood  of  His  piacular  sorrows. 

It  is  only  by  identifying  happiness  with  present 
enjoyment,  or  assuming  that  there  is  no  happiness,  in 
so  far  as  pleasurable  feeling  is  interrupted,  that  Christ, 
in  His  sufferings,  can  be  esteemed  unhappy.  Let  hap- 
piness be  taken  as  including  goodness  in  itself ;  or, 
instead  of  naming  it  happiness,  let  it  be  called  good — 
its  completest  name  ;  and  its  just  and  inevitable  dis- 


HAPPINESS.  225 

tinction  is  that  of  the  geeatest  good — the  pursuit 
and  goal  of  Optimism. 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said,  that  the  only 
absolute  unhappiness  is  sin — that  is  to  say,  rebellion 
against  goodness.  This,  in  its  very  idea,  is  the  adver- 
sary of  happiness.  It  must  be  counteracted  and  de- 
feated, to  prevent  its  proving  the  destruction  of  uni- 
versal good.  Everything  else  may  be  made  by  goodness 
to  subserve  the  greatest  good  ;  sin  is  an  exception. 
The  sinner's  only  hope  is  in  repentance  and  forgiveness. 
Incorrigible  impenitence  is  necessary  ruin. 

10* 


V.  — SIN. 

Sin,  or  moral  evil,  is  absolutely  or  only  evil.  Other 
evils,  which  are  made  necessary  by  sin,  are  means  of 
good  ;  but  sin  is  the  means  of  no  good,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  expression.  It  would,  on  the  contrary, 
destroy  all  good,  if  not  effectually  counteracted.  In 
a  system  in  which  sin  has  place,  other  evils  may  not 
be  ultimately  evil,  but  good — things,  on  the  whole,  to 
be  desired.  They  may  counterwork  sin,  undo  its  mis- 
chief, prevent  further  mischief  from  it ;  cultivate  good- 
ness ;  subserve  the  pursuit  of  the  highest  good  attain- 
able after  sin  has  entered.  But  sin  itself,  which  gave 
occasion  for  these  evils,  would,  in  its  destructiveness 
of  good,  hinder  them  also  from  promoting  good,  and 
work,  through  them,  to  the  increase  of  itself;  and 
would  pervert  everything  else  unto  evil,  and  so  make 
the  condition  of  the  universe  merely  evil,  and  the  non- 
existence of  the  universe  an  object  of  desire.  The  ills 
of  life,  so  called,  the  afflictions  of  good  men,  the  chas- 
tisements of  God,  the  severest  punishments  of  sin,  are, 
in  a  comprehensive  view,  the  means  of  good — the 
necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good,  ivhere  sin  is  to 
be  encountered  ;  hell  itself  is  so,  regarded  as  the  punish- 
ment of  sin.  But  sin  in  itself,  and  in  its  proper  effects 
and  tendencies,  is  simply  evil,  out  of  which  good,  as 
its  natural  product,  can  no  more  come  than  light  out 
(226) 


SIN.  227 

of  darkness,  sweet  out  of  bitter,  cold  from  burning 
heat.  Optimism,  therefore,  which,  in  principle  and 
activity,  seeks  only  good,  has  no  need  of  sin,  and  as  a 
means  adapted,  in  itself,  to  an  end,  can  make  no  use  of 
it ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has,  from  first  to  last,  to  work 
against  it  and  destroy  its  works.  It  may  have  to  take 
occasion  from  it  to  employ  instruments  and  agencies 
of  its  own,  which,  in  the  absence  of  sin,  would  have 
been  unnecessary.  It  may  turn  the  machinations  of 
sin  against  itself,  and  thus  produce  good,  not  other- 
wise to  be  attained  ;  but  this  good  is  from  its  own 
activity,  in  contending  against  sin  ;  not  from  sin  as  an 
agent  or  means  of  good.  The  word  means  is  some- 
times used  in  a  loose  sense,  in  which  it  includes  what- 
ever forms  of  instrumental  agency  may  spring  incident- 
ally from  urgent  occasions  ;  as  when  e.g.,  a  pestilence 
is  said  to  be  a  means  of  health,  because  it  occasioned 
the  invention  of  medicinal  or  other  remedies  against 
future  visitations  of  the  calamity.  But  there  is,  in 
such  a  use  of  language,  no  intention  of  confounding 
means  and  occasions  /  or,  to  take  the  illustration  just 
instanced,  to  say  that  the  pestilence,  and  the  remedies 
bear  the  same  relation  to  health.  The  pestilence  was 
the  means  of  death  or  disease  ;  the  means  of  health 
were  the  remedies,  of  the  invention  or  application  of 
which  the  pestilence  was  the  occasion.  Whether  of 
the  remedies  or  their  effects,  the  pestilence  was  a 
means,  only  in  the  sense  in  which  everything  is  said  to 
be  a  means,  which  leads,  however  incidentally  or  casu- 
ally, to  results  ulterior  to  itself. 

Sin,  instead  of  being  the  means  of  the  greatest  good, 


228  am. 

is  a  means  of  preventing  this,  in  so  far  as  sin,  with 
its  proper  effects,  cannot  be  excluded,  under  the  best 
mode  of  agency  which  can  be  employed  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  good  attainable  in  the  absence  of  sin,  was 
greater  than  that  which  could  be  attained  after  its 
entrance  ;  otherwise,  sin  was  the  indispensable  con- 
dition of  the  greatest  good,  originally ;  and  the 
earnest  pursuit  of  this,  while  repelling,  or  seeking 
to  prevent  sin,  was  impossible,  unless  one  may  be  in 
earnest  in  seeking  to  defeat  his  own  ends. 

But  though  sin  be  not  the  means  of  good,  may  not 
the  remedy  of  sin,  with  its  evils,  have  been  originally 
necessary  to  the  greatest  good?  If  it  was,  then,  the 
greatest  good,  demanding  this  remedy  as  indispens- 
able to  its  attainment,  demanded,  at  the  same 
time,  sin — apart  from  which  there  was  no  place 
for  the  remedy  ;  and  the  answer  to  the  question  has 
all-cad}'  been  given.  It  may  be  that  advantage  may 
come  from  a  remedy  beyond  that  which  was  directly 
sought  from  it ;  but  to  make  a  remedy  originally  neces- 
sary to  the  greatest  advantage,  is  to  make  the  evil — 
that  is,  in  the  present  case,  sin — also  necessary,  with- 
out which  there  is  no  need  or  place  for  the  remedy. 
Where  there  is  a  disease,  there  may  be  nothing  better 
than  a  remedy  for  it  ;  but  it  were  better,  if  it  might 
be  so,  to  have  neither  disease  nor  remedy.  He  surely 
were  "  a  physician  of  no  value,"  however  famous  as  a 
curer  of  disease,  who  makes  the  disease  which  he 
cures. 

As  the  plan  of  the  world  involved  the  possibility 
and  the  futurition  of  evil — though  to  be  prevented,  if 


SIN.  229 

it  might  be,  under  the  best  preventive  agency— the 
Divine  Goodness,  to  which  all  things  in  the  world's 
appointed  course  were  manifest,  could  not  but  have 
had  reference  to  the  rise  of  sin,  and  anticipated  and 
provided  against  it  even  from  the  beginning  ;  and  the 
arrangement  and  ordering  of  all  things  in  creation  and 
providence  could  not  but  have  been  accordingly  de- 
termined on.  But  this  proleptical  or  prudential  re- 
ference no  more  interfered  with  the  desire  of  the 
the  Deity  that  sin  might  not  be,  or  with  His  using 
proper  means  to  prevent  it,  than  does  his  foresight 
of  the  future  certainty  of  sin,  now.  God  did,  from 
the  first,  as  He  now  does,  oppose  Himself  to  sin. 
He  did  not  and  does  not  want  it.  It  is,  as  it  ever 
has  been  and  must  be,  the  abominable  thing  which 
His  soul  hateth.  He  made  all  things  good  ;  it  was 
desirable,  that  is  to  say,  it  was  for  the  best,  that 
they  should  remain  so.  He  used  the  best  agency  to 
keep  them  so.  It  was  not  best  to  depart  from  this 
agency,  in  order  to  prevent  the  dire  change  which  was 
made  in  the  state  of  the  world  by  sin.  Better  than  this 
variation  from  His  established  order,  was  inflexible 
adherence  to  it,  together  with  the  Remedial  Scheme 
which  He  purposed  to  introduce,  upon  the  perpetration 
of  sin.  But  it  was  not  better  for  the  change  to  take 
place.  Sin  gave  occasion  for  new  procedures  of  Divine 
goodness,  which  was  still  intent  on  gaining  the  great- 
est good  now  achievable  ;  but  that  this  was  greater 
than  that  which  Avould  have  been  attainable,  if  sin  had 
not  entered,  supposes  either  that  God  preferred  a  less 
good  to  a  greater,  as  the  end  of  His  works,  or  that 


230  srsr. 

He  had  need  of  sin,  the  enemy  of  all  good  and  the 
cause  of  evil,  of  which  He  only  can  know  the  magni- 
tude, in  order  to  gain  the  greater  ;  each  of  which 
would  undeify  Him.  It  does  not  hence  follow  that 
there  was  a  change  or  an  after-thought  in  the  mind  of 
God.  The  only  thing  necessary  to  be  assumed  is,  that 
God,  the  Infinite  and  Incomprehensible,  is  incapable 
of  any  agency  inconsistent  with  goodness,  or  with  sin- 
cerity in  opposing  or  resisting  sin.  An  assumption 
contravening  the  theory  of  the  universe,  which  makes 
Redemption  or  the  Remedial  system  the  prime  end  of 
the  Divine  agency  in  creation  and  providence.  All 
things  were  made  by  and  for  Him,  who,  in  due  time, 
became  the  Redeemer  of  man  ;  but — except  in  the  sys- 
tem of  the  Divine  purposes,  of  which  the  order  is 
anti-typical  to  that  of  events — He  was  not  a  Redeemer 
when  they  were  made  ;  and  the  prolepsis,  or  anticipa- 
tion of  Redemption,  was  not  inconsistent  with  the 
earnest  use  of  the  best  agency  for  preventing  the  ne- 
cessity for  it. 


VI.  — THE    REIGN    OF    SIN, 

Volition,  the  act  of  willing,  follows  prevailing  de- 
sire, or  what  appears  best  at  the  moment  of  its  occur- 
rence ;  and  under  the  influence  of  sin,  this  appearance 
always  belongs  to  evil.  It  is  the  peculiar  function  of 
sin,  to  make  evil  seem  the  greatest  good,  when  an  ex- 
ercise of  the  will  is  about  to  put  itself  forth,  under  its 
command.  It  is  impossible  that  evil,  as  such,  or  for 
its  own  sake,  should  be  preferred  before  good  ;  it  is 
also  impossible,  that  to  the  view  of  any  one,  however 
debased  by  sin,  evil  and  good,  as  such,  should  exchange 
qualities  or  lose  their  essential  distinctiveness  from 
one  another.  Nevertheless,  while,  and  in  so  far  as  sin 
reigns  within  any  one,  his  preference  is  steadfast  and 
inevitable  in  favor  of  evil.  It  is  the  work  of  sin  to 
produce  this  preference  ;  that  is,  as  before  said,  to 
make  evil  appear  more  desirable  than  good — or  better, 
at  the  moment  of  volition,  than  any  good  in  its  stead. 
Here,  at  a  glance,  is  seen  the  nature  of  the  Dominion 
of  Sin.  Its  beginning  is  in  Deceit ;  the  sinner  is  drawn 
away  of  his  own  desire,  and  enticed  ;  hence  a  false  ap- 
pearance, wherein  is  the  inception,  and  the  elemental 
life  or  essence  of  sin.  (See  James  i.  14,  15,  and  com- 
pare Genesis  iii.  6.)  Thus  it  is  that  sin,  the  enemy  of 
good,  whose  good  is  evil,  begins  its  work  of  death.  It 
does  its  first  mischief  in  deluding  the  sinner  ;  it  is  to 

(231) 


232  THE  REIGN  OF  SIN 

him  a  voluntary  enslavement  to  delusion  ;  it  makes 
him  the  victim  of  false  appearance  ;  it  starts  him  in  a 
career  of  desperate  enmity  to  good  and  goodness  in 
himself ;  and  according  to  this  mad  beginning,  he  pur- 
sues his  way,  the  agent  of  his  own  ruin,  and  fitted  to 
be  an  instrument  of  ruin  in  the  world. 

The  history  of  sin,  presents  it  as  an  organized  Em- 
pire. The  first  sinner  was  an  angel.  We  know  noth- 
ing as  to  the  manner  of  his  fall ;  whether  it  originated 
in  a  confederacy  with  others,  or  whether  they  became 
his  confederates  after  its  occurrence,  we  are  not  inform- 
ed ;  but  he  appears  in  the  history  of  our  world,  under 
the  name  of  Satan,  as  the  supreme  head  of  an  empire, 
and  as  such  holds  a  place  of  impious  rivalry  and  de- 
fiance to  the  Almighty  Maker  and  Ruler  Himself. 
Already  "  the  prince  "  of  evil  angels,  he  sought  to  add 
the  race  of  man  to  the  number  of  his  subjects,  and  the 
record  of  his  success  stands  in  the  foreground  of  the 
sad  fortunes  of  mankind.  Thenceforth,  he  became 
"  the  prince,"  or  "  god,"  as  he  is  variously  called,  of 
this  world  also  ;  a  bad  eminence,  which  lie  has  always 
found  it  too  easy  to  maintain.  The  earth,  consequently, 
is  the  seat  of  a  kingdom  of  Satan,  having  its  own  com- 
pact, its  own  constitution  and  laws,  its  own  most  effec- 
tive administration,  and  the  nations  and  generations 
of  men  in  voluntary  subjection  to  it.  Through  this* 
mighty  organism,  sin  is  ever  and  everywhere  working 
to  the  destruction  of  good,  and  the  multiplication  of 
evil,  with  a  force  and  to  an  extent  not  to  be  com- 
puted. 

The  accomplishment  of  the  arch-adversary's  design 


THE  EEION  OF  SIN.  233 

against  man,  required  but  one  attempt.  The  race  ex- 
isting in  germ,  in  a  common  sire,  from  whom  it  was  to 
spring  in  successive  generations,  fell  in  his  fall — the 
natural  result  of  the  debasement  of  humanity  in  him. 
Success  with  Adam  was  the  success  with  his  posterity. 
The  race  was  lost  in  him.  Until  man  shall  cease  to 
be  born  of  woman,  flesh  to  be  born  of  flesh,  each  indi- 
vidual, when  he  comes  into  the  world,  will  be  ''by 
nature  a  child  of  wrath,  shapen  in  iniquity  and  con- 
ceived in  sin."  The  contrary  could  not  be,  but  by 
superseding  natural  by  the  intervention,  in  every  in- 
stance, of  supernatural  force  ;  which,  if  the  principle 
of  Optimism  determined  the  first  arrangement,  could 
not  be  admitted — the  consequence  to  be  excluded  by 
it,  being,  in  the  Divine  view,  in  that  case,  not  so  unde- 
sirable as  the  intervention  itself  would  be  on  the 
whole.  The  result,  therefore,  was  inevitable.  Through 
a  perversion  of  the  constitution  under  which  our  na- 
ture had  its  beginning,  the  first  man's  ruin  was  the 
ruin  of  mankind. 

Nor  has  the  perversion  of  Divine  order  in  the  inter- 
est of  sin  been  restricted  to  this  fundamental  instance. 
Man  was  to  live  in  families,  in  communities,  in  cities, 
in  states  ;  in  each  of  these  were  to  be  spheres  of  closer 
affinity,  fellowships  of  pleasure,  of  trade,  of  science, 
and  letters,  etc. ;  whence  special  customs,  modes  of 
life,  maxims,  principles  of  action,  compacts,  etc.,  each 
forming  a  distinct  centre  of  influence.  All  have  been 
perverted,  and  all,  through  perversion,  have  contribu- 
ted to  enlarge  immeasurably  the  predominance  of  sin. 
And  the  more  so,  immeasurably,  because  on  the  whole, 


234  TEE  REIGN  OF  SIN. 

and  in  each  particular,  the  original  enemy,  with  the 
evil  principalities  and  powers  under  his  command,  has 
never  ceased  to  apply  the  machinations  of  his  own  in- 
dustrious sagacity.  Nor  is  the  view  of  perversion  yet 
complete.  It  has  been  extended  through  the  entire 
physical  sphere,  all  natural  agencies  and  forces — the 
light,  the  air,  all  the  elements,  all  the  ordinances  of 
heaven  and  earth  :  to  use  sacred  language,  "  the  whole 
creation,"  subsidized  by  sin,  "  has  been  made  to  groan 
and  travail  together  in  pain  until  now." 

Moreover,  sin  has  its  own  individual  organisms — 
establishments  directly  formed  by  itself ;  fellowships 
and  foundations  originally  intended  and  constructed 
as  engines  of  evil ;  institutions  of  error,  idolatry,  in- 
iquity of  every  form,  vast  and  manifold,  in  and  through 
which  the  various  agents  of  evil  operate,  with  every 
advantage  for  success,  all  under  the  control  and  energy 
of  the  prime  Author  of  evil. 

The  actual  varieties  in  which  sin  has  appeared  in 
human  life,  and  its  triumphant  progress  from  age  to 
age,  correspond  with  these  great  facilities  for  extend- 
ing and  demonstrating  its  power.  Its  expression 
toward  man  himself  has  been  in  every  form  of  lust, 
deception,  injustice,  rapine,  murder,  cruelty,  violence  ; 
toward  God,  in  irreverence,  insult,  blasphemy,  idolatry, 
atheism ;  in  which,  and  in  all  their  subordinate  forms,  it 
has,  in  all  time,  overspread  the  face  of  the  earth,  as 
the  waters  cover  the  sea.  Before  the  flood,  every 
imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  man's  heart  being  only 
evil  continually,  all  flesh  corrupted  its  way  on  the 
earth,  and  filled  it  with  violence;  insomuch  that,  in  the 


THE  REIQN  OF  SIN.  235 

language  of  the  sacred  record,  it  repented  God  and 
grieved  Him  at  His  heart  that  He  had  made  man. 
From  its  second  beginning  until  the  advent  of  Christ, 
the  course  of  mankind  is  traced  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  ;  with  which  profane  re- 
cords fully  concur  j  and  this  transcript  of  atrocity  is 
equally  applicable  to  the  generations  which  have  fol- 
lowed. 

And  it  immensely  enhances  the  evil  of  sin's  enormi- 
ties among  men,  that  it  has  put  them  all  forth,  against 
incessant  opposition  to  it,  on  the  part  of  the  Divine 
goodness.  For,  after  the  first  transgression  of  man, 
the  Remedial  scheme,  the  best  which  that  goodness 
could  devise,  immediately  began  to  exert  itself.  Atone- 
ment was  anticipated,  punishment  was  stayed,  pardon 
was  offered  to  repentance,  institutions  of  grace  were 
appointed,  and  in  every  appropriate  mode,  the  agency 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  exerted.  Nor  was  it  only  in 
forms  of  forbearance  and  gentleness,  that  the  goodness 
of  God  strove  against  sin.  It  employed  severity  as 
well  as  pity  ;  it  arrayed  against  incorrigible  impeni- 
tence the  terrors  of  Avenging  justice;  it  set  forth  signal 
examples  of  this  justice,  to  induce  others  to  repent ; 
through  judicial  abandonments  it  exhibited  sin  as 
dreadfully  punishing  itself,  by  the  multiplication  of 
monstrous  forms  of  evil ;  it  pointed  man  to  whole  na- 
tions, one  after  another,  one  by  means  of  others,  per- 
ishing through  their  sinfulness  ;  it  announced  eternal 
death  and  hell  as  following  on  the  heels  of  obstinate 
guilt ;  in  fearful  sights  and  signs,  in  shakings  and  con- 
vulsions of  nature,  it  sounded  loud  alarms  to  the  world. 


230  THE  REIGN  OF  SIN. 

Thus  God  has  contended,  and  thus  He  is  still  contend- 
ing against  sin,  which  appears  in  the  greatness  and  terri- 
bleness  of  its  dominion,  in  that  even  against  such 
opposition  to  it,  it  can  not  only  maintain  itself,  but 
pervert  this  very  opposition  into  the  occasion  of  its 
self-aggrandisement.  How  eminent  among  mysteries, 
this  most  outstanding  fact  of  the  mutual  militancy  of 
sin  and  the  Divine  goodness  !  Yet  even  above  this,  as 
cause  for  amazement,  stands  another  very  familiar 
fact — namely,  that  men,  with  knowledge  of  the  former 
fact,  and  with  bitter  experience  in  themselves  of  the 
deadliness  of  the  reign  of  sin,  and  often  with  lively 
apprehensions  of  the  peril  of  final  and  absolute  subju- 
gation to  it,  in  the  eternity  to  come,  impending  over 
them  every  moment,  still,  by  their  own  choice,  keep 
themselves  exposed  to  this  peril. 


VII.— MERCY. 

There  is  in  sentient  being,  so  far  as  we  are  ac- 
quainted with  it,  a  self-protective  property  called  anger, 
which,  on  a  sudden  attack,  instantly  springs  into  exer- 
cise against  the  assailant.  But  in  rational  creatures 
this  constitutional  element  is  under  the  law  of  good- 
ness, against  the  interest  of  which  its  indulgence  is 
not  to  be  allowed.  When,  therefore,  its  proper  end, 
self-protection,  ceases  to  require  its  exercise,  it  should 
be  suppressed,  since  it  would  produce  only  pain  or 
unhappiness,  which,  if  not  necessary,  is  inconsistent 
with  the  rule  of  goodness.  A  good  being  cannot  in- 
dulge anger  for  no  purpose :  simply  vindictive  or 
malign  anger  resteth  nowhere,  except  in  the  bosom  of 
fools.    (Eccles.  vii.  9.) 

If  this  property  belong  to  the  nature  of  the  Deity,  it 
must  in  Him,  also,  be  subordinate  to  goodness,  the 
glory  of  every  good  being.  The  All-Perfect,  the  pat- 
tern of  perfection  to  His  creatures,  can  give  no  ex- 
pression to  useless  anger.  The  Scripture  ascribes  this 
feeling  to  the  Divine  Being,  in  the  strongest  terms  of 
irascible  passion  :  "  God  is  jealous,  and  the  Lord  rc- 
vengeth  ;  the  Lord  revengeth  and  is  furious ;  the  Lord 
will  take  vengeance  on  His  adversaries,  and  He  re- 
serveth  wrath  for  His  enemies."  (Nah.  i.  2.)  But  to 
apply  such  language  to  God,  in  a  sense  supposing  Him 

(237) 


238  MERCY. 

to  be  revengeful,  like  a  man  infuriated  with  malignant 
passion,  were  to  set  the  Scripture  into  discord  with 
itself,  and  to  make  the  Deity  an  object  of  infinite 
horror  to  His  creatures.  Over  every  thing  in  the 
constitution  and  essence,  and  entire  agency  of  God, 
the  supremacy  of  goodness  is  immanent  and  absolute. 
His  anger,  in  its  highest  manifestations,  its  severest 
inflictions,  is  the  servitor  and  agent  of  His  goodness. 
If  it  destroys  some,  it  is  because  something  worse  would 
be  involved  in  sparing  them.  If  it  makes  a  hell,  it 
does  this  work  of  indignant  justice,  because  in  not 
doing  it,  it  would  cease  to  be  goodness,  or  refrain  from 
using  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good.  It 
has  had  to  do  this  dreadful  work.  The  first  sinners, 
the  devil  and  his  angels,  are  reserved  under  chains  of 
everlasting  darkness  ;  and  the  same  is  the  inevitable 
doom  of  those  of  mankind  who  will  not  forsake  their 
fellowship.  For  the  way  of  goodness  is  not  that  of 
mere  will :  it  has  its  own  indispensable  and  immutable 
conditions.  It  would  defeat  itself,  it  would,  in  effect, 
cease  to  be  goodness,  if  it  did  not  observe  proper 
mode  ;  or  if  it  disregarded  moral  proportion  or  har- 
mony in  its  actings.  God  cannot  act  out  of  harmony 
with  Himself.  He  were  no  longer  God,  if,  in  any 
movement,  in  or  out  of  Himself,  there  were  a  non-con- 
currence of  any  one  of  His  perfections  ;  if,  e.g.,  He 
should  put  forth  an  exercise  of  poiver  from  which 
xvisdom  should  dissent ;  or  an  exercise  of  mercy  against 
the  protest  of  justice.  In  strictest  truth,  what  God,  as 
God,  can  do,  is  not  what  power  or  mercy  can  do — for 
God  is  more  than  power  or  mercy — but  what  can  be 


MERCY.  239 

done  by  an  activity  in  which  every  divine  attribute 
can  combine  and  coalesce.  It  is  one  of  the  worst  fruits 
of  sin,  that  an  opinion  which  denies  this  highest  of 
necessities  prevails  among  men.  They  think  the  good- 
ness of  God  may  take  the  form  of  mercy  by  arbitrary 
will ;  on  this  assumption  they  reason  and  construct 
their  theories  and  systems  ; — an  assumption  which  is 
itself  virtually  the  sum  of  delusion,  involving  the  un- 
deifying  of  God,  the  end  of  all  good  and  goodness  in 
the  universe. 

There  was,  as  the  event  proved,  a  possibility  of 
showing  mercy  to  man,  when  he  brought  the  need  of 
it  on  himself.  But  this  possibility  had  its  ground  in 
another,  namely,  the  possibility  to  the  Divine  goodness, 
of  so  preparing  its  way  to  take  the  form  of  mercy,  that 
it  might  do  so  and  yet  remain  goodness  to  the  end  ;  or 
not  do  ultimately  more  evil  than  good.  There  was 
this  latter  possibility,  but  the  ground  of  it  did  not  lie 
in  simple  will  or  power,  but  in  a  sufficiency  and  a 
readiness  in  the  Divine  goodness  to  make  a  self-sacri- 
fice, which  was  itself  the  highest  instance  of  that  good- 
ness, and  the  comprehension  of  all  the  good  thenceforth 
to  be  communicated  to  mankind.  Two  subordinate 
ends  required  to  be  answered :  First,  the  adequate 
revelation  of  Avenging  justice,  or  the  Divine  displeas- 
ure against  sin,  the  measure  of  which  is  nothing  less 
than  that  of  the  Divine  goodness  itself,  since  of  this 
goodness  and  all  its  possible  fruits,  sin  is  the  enemy 
and  would  be  the  destroyer ;  and,  secondly,  the  applica- 
tion of  an  agency  by  which  sin  itself  can  be  destroyed, 
and  the  original  order  restored  in  those  to  whom  the 


240  MERCY. 

sacrifice  is  ultimately  available ;  since,  otherwise,  the 
effect  of  the  sacrifice  would  be  but  to  promote  and 
aggrandize  the  power  of  sin.  Sell-evidently  these 
two  were  indispensable  prerequisites  to  the  course  of 
goodness  toward  man.  And  incidental  to  them,  there 
was  this  contingence,  namely,  the  aggravation  of  final 
uuhappiness  to  such  as  might,  in  persistent  contempt 
of  goodness,  choose  to  abide  under  the  dominion  of  sin. 
The  conditions  involving  the  contingency  were  met : 
the  possibility  became  a  reality.  The  reigx  of  Meecy 
was  instituted:  Goodness — establishing  itself  on  its 
own  firm  and  everlasting  foundation  ;  meeting  all  exi- 
gencies of  Holy  justice ;  securing  itself  against  ultimate 
defeat  and  abuse — changed  its  original  form,  and, 
thenceforth,  instead  of  simple  kindness  or  favor,  be- 
came favor  to  the  guilty  ;  wherein,  in  countless  va- 
rieties, and  in  fulness,  as  that  of  the  sea,  it  has  abound- 
ed to  mankind. 

It  is  impossible  to  us  to  know  in  what  respects 
goodness  had  to  forego  its  first  course  of  agency,  the 
course  it  would  have  pursued,  if  sin  had  been  unknown. 
A  different  object  was  now  before  it.  Known  unto 
God  are  all  His  works  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world  ;  the  end  ultimately  to  be  attained  by  them 
must,  therefore,  have  also  been  known  to  Him  ;  but 
this,  before  the  entrance  of  sin,  did  not  hinder  His 
earnestly  pursuing  the  end  which  might  have  been  at- 
tained in  the  absence  of  sin  ;  else,  as  has  been  already 
said,  God's  foreknowledge  would  subject  Him  alto- 
gether to  Fate, — that  is  to  say,  there  were  in  truth  no 
God.     And  if  Ho  did  aim  ol  this  end,  means  suited  to 


MERCY.  241 

its  attainment  must  have  been  employed  by  Him. 
What  they  were,  or,  beyond  the  negative  intuitions  of 
reason,  what  they  were  not,  it  were  presumptuous  in  us 
to  attempt  to  imagine,  much  more  to  claim,  as  too 
many  have  done,  to  have  positive  knowledge.  Not 
contingent  possibilities  or  requisitions,  but  inspired 
teaching  and  the  facts  of  history  and  experience,  are 
what  we  are  concerned  with.  According  to  these,  the 
economy  of  goodness  proceeding  on  its  new  basis,  was 
wonderfully  new  in  many  fundamental  particulars.  It 
required  Human  Nature  to  be  constituted  anew,  under 
a  new  Head,  and  in  a  new  Root.  It  made  new  con- 
ditions and  terms  of  favor  with  God ;  it  appointed  new 
institutions  and  ordinances  of  life  ;  it  gave  access  to 
new  resources  of  strength  and  happiness ;  it  opened 
new  prospects ;  it  made  new  promises,  and  threatened 
new  penalties  ;  it  called  for  a  new  and  highly  peculiar 
form  of  character ;  it  involved  new  and  stupendous 
fortunes  to  mankind. 

It  applied  its  provisions  and  influences  to  the  entire 
race  ;  it  blessed  the  entire  race  with  mercies  innumer- 
able, and  of  immeasurable  value.  But  it  did  not  at 
once  undo  the  perversions  and  mischiefs  of  sin ;  it  did 
not  restore  at  once  the  original  order  of  the  world  ;  it 
did  not  abolish  natural  evils  ;  it  did  not  exclude  temp- 
tation or  the  tempter ;  it  did  not  reverse  the  sentence 
of  bodily  dissolution,  or  exempt  man  from  disappoint- 
ment, pain,  or  any  form  of  disease  ;  it  did  not  preclude 
enmities  among  men  toward  one  another  ;  it  left  itself 
subject  to  malignant  opposition  from  evil  angels  and 
men  ;  it  was  to  make  its' way  through  desperate  con- 
11 


242  MERCY. 

flicts,  and  alternate  success  and  defeat,  to  be  continued 
to  the  end  of  time  ;  and  at  last  the  dire  necessity  would 
remain  to  it  of  consigning  the  impenitent  to  enhanced 
unhappiness. 

The  manifestations  and  achievements  of  Goodness, 
both  before  and  after  the  change  of  its  way,  will  at 
last  demonstrate  the  undeviating  supremacy  of  Optim- 
ism in  the  universe.  It  will  then  be  made  evident 
that  as  the  best  world  was  brought  into  existence  by 
creative  power,  so  the  best  management  of  it  will  have 
been  maintained  through  the  entire  course  of  time. 
There  will  be  nothing  to  be  excepted,  nothing  instead 
of  which  something  better  might  have  been  done.  Not 
so  good  would  have  been  the  agency  necessary  to  pre- 
vent the  entrance  of  sin,  as  that  negative  agency 
which  permitted  this,  connected  with  its  sequel,  the 
institution  of  the  Reign  of  mercy.  Not  better  would 
it  have  been  to  have  employed  a  different  agency  to 
that  which  was  exerted  to  prevent  the  predominance 
of  sin  and  the  doom  of  the  lost.  Still  it  will  remain 
self-evident  that  greater  good  would  have  been  possible 
if  sin,  with  its  evils,  had  never  been  known.  The  do- 
ing of  mercy  will  fill  Heaven  with  eternal  wonder  and 
joy  ;  it  will  make  revelations  of  goodness  which  but 
for  it  would  have  had  no  place ;  God,  in  one  aspect  of 
His  character,  will  be  known,  as  otherwise  He  could 
not  have  been.  But  better,  nevertheless,  had  it  been 
if  no  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  His  mercy  had  arisen  ; 
if  His  goodness  had  been  left  to  pursue  its  course  as 
goodness  simply ;  to  employ  its  unsearchable  resources 
for  the  production  of  goodness  and  happiness  in  the 


MERCY.  243 

universe,  without  a  necessity  for  a  Hell.  The  inflic- 
tions of  Avenging  justice  in  punishing  incorrigible  sin, 
are  not  to  be  spared ;  they  produce  a  sense,  as  salutary 
as  it  is  awful,  of  the  majesty  of  law,  and  the  strength 
and  stability  of  government.  But  it  is  pure  malignity 
only  that  can  refrain  from  regret  at  the  demand  for 
them ;  and  it  is  only  this  demand,  this  inexorable  ne- 
cessity, that  enables  goodness  to  reconcile  itself  to 
them. 


VIII.— THE  REDEEMER. 

Among  things  of  highest  certainty  to  us,  are  those 
to  which  our  ideas  of  personality  and  essence  corres- 
pond, and  the  radical  difference  between  these  two. 
And  though  we  cannot  define  or  explain  them,  the 
knowledge  of  them  and  of  their  difference  from  each 
other  cannot  but  be  assumed  in  common  intellection 
and  discourse  ;  nor  can  there  be  any  justness  of  con- 
tinuous thinking  or  expression  on  subjects  of  great- 
est moment,  without  carefully  distinguishing  between 
them,  so  that  nothing  shall  ever  be  predicated  of  one 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  other. 

Of  finite  persons,  so  far  as  we  know,  each  one  has  a 
distinct  and  a  single  personality  proper  to  himself; 
but  personality  in  them  may,  in  the  same  individual, 
be  united  to  several  essences  or  natures.  Thus,  the 
same  man  with  one  personality,  is  a  compound  of  body 
and  spirit,  the  essences  of  which  are  not  only  diverse, 
but  immiscible.  Of  the  Deity,  whose  essence  is  in- 
finite, the  opposite  of  this  has  been  revealed  to  us. 
He  has  but  one  Essence,  but  this  dwells  completely  in 
three  distinct  Persons,  from  eternity  and  of  necessity 
united,  and  so  constituting  one  God. 

By  that  wisdom  of  the  world,  which  with  God  is 
foolishness,  the  Tri-personality  of  the  Supreme  Being 
is  rejected  ;  using,  in  doing  so,  its  own  absolute  ignor- 
(244) 


THE  REDEEMER.  245 

ance  to  deprive  itself  of  knowledge  of  highest  concern- 
ment, and  thus  giving  a  pre-eminent  example  of  the 
Deceit  and  infatuation  in  which  sin  had  its  beginning, 
and  by  which  it  has  strengthened  and  extended  its 
dominion. 

In  rejecting  this  sublime  revelation,  a  sinful  world 
virtually  abolishes  all   hope  for   itself.     It  was  the 
peculiarity  as  to  the  mode  or  constitution  of  the  Divine 
Being,  which  this  revelation  announces,  that  enabled 
infinite  Goodness,  so  to  speak,  to  continue  its  course 
toward  fallen  man  in  the  form  of  Mercy.     Herein  lay 
the  ground  of  the  possibility  of  its  making  the  prere- 
quisite sacrifice.     It  was  impossible  for  us  to  have 
known  of  ourselves  what  this  sacrifice  behooved  to  be ; 
but  as   it  required   to  have  a  value   satisfactory   to 
Avenging  Justice,  or  equivalent  to  that  of  the  punish- 
ment of  sin,  according  to  its  demerit,  it  is  self-demon- 
strative that  it  could  be  made  by  no  finite  or  created  per- 
son.   In  the  sphere  of  the  finite  there  is  no  person  compe- 
tent to  make,  or  undertake  to  make  it.  However  exalted 
or  endowed,  however  eminent  in  rank  or  goodness,  finite 
persons  may  be,  they  depend  on  the  Infinite  for  what- 
ever they  are  and  have  ;  and  to  deny  or  lose  a  sense 
of  this  dependence,  would  be  to  become  atheistic,  or 
make  themselves  gods.     There  is  absurdity,  not  to  say 
impiety,  in  the  idea  that  such  persons,  unless  already 
falleu  into  the  delusiveness  of  sin,  should  think  them- 
selves capable  of  more  goodness  than  is  already  due 
from  them  to  their  Maker  on  their  own  account.    How, 
then,  shall  they  be  able,  or  think  themselves  able,  to 
make  satisfaction  for  sin,  or  the  want  of  goodness  in 


246  THE  REDEEMER. 

another  ;  much  less  in  a  whole  race  of  creatures  ?  If, 
therefore,  the  sacrifice  was  required  to  be  made  by  a 
Person,  lie  must  be  a  Divine  one  ;  that  is  to  say,  a 
Person  in  the  sphere,  and  having  the  essence  of  the 
Infinite  ;  and  if  there  had  been  but  one  such  Person, 
he  must  have  been  that  one  ;  a  necessity,  as  we  shall 
see,  involving  another  necessity,  namely,  that  for  a 
time  there  should  be  no  Divine  Person  in  the  estate 
of  glory  proper  to  the  Divine  Being  ;  the  idea  of  which 
is  no  less  absurd  and  monstrous  than  that  of  blank 
atheism . 

Which  of  the  Divine  Persons  should  assume  the  un- 
dertaking was  of  necessity  determinable  only  by  them- 
selves. There  was  one  of  them  called  by  various 
names, — the  Word,  the  Life,  the  only  begotten  Son  of 
God, — by  whom,  in  a  special  sense,  though  with  con- 
currence of  the  others,  all  acts  and  operations  of  the 
Deity  in  the  world  and  in  its  creation  had  been  per- 
formed. On  Him  this  work  also  was  devolved,  and 
by  Him  it  was  accomplished. 

Its  accomplishment  required  of  Him  an  infinite  hu- 
miliation .  He  had  to  descend  into  the  sphere  of  hu- 
manity, and  to  take  humanity  completely,  its  sinfulness 
alone  excepted,  into  a  personal  union  with  His  Divine 
Nature.  His  eternal  Personality,  divesting  itself  of 
the  form  proper  to  Him  as  Divine,  was  to  appear 
thenceforth,  for  a  human  lifetime,  in  fashion  as  that  of 
a  man  ;  in  which,  by  additional  abasement,  in  all 
respects  extreme,  Pie  had  to  finish  His  undertaking. 
In  this  descent  from  the  rank  of  the  Infinite,  He  could 
not  cease  Himself  to  be  Infinite  :  God  cannot  undeify 


TEE  REDEEMER.  247 

Himself.  Accordingly,  in  the  descent,  even  down  to 
its  lowest  depth,  the  honors  due  only  to  the  Deity 
were  still  paid  to  Him  ;  as  in  its  sequel,  He  showed 
Himself  still  Divine  by  Divine  works  of  His  own,  and 
was  also  witnessed  unto  and  sealed,  as  having  coequal 
Divinity  with  themselves  by  the  other  Divine  Persons. 
Nevertheless,  except  that  He  knew  no  sin,  the  measure 
of  His  humiliation  was  throughout  without  measure  ; 
and,  at  its  last  stage  especially,  it  was  unsearchably 
strange  and  wonderful.  In  its  process  to  this  stage, 
He  presents  an  example  of  wisdom  in  teaching,  of  self- 
denying  beneficence,  of  patient  endurance  of  tempta- 
tion and  affliction,  of  meekness  and  self-composure 
under  the  greatest  provocations,  wherein  His  Divine- 
Human  character  is  also  resplendent  with  brightest 
glory  to  those  who  are  competent  to  discern  it.  But 
now,  a  tragical  scene  occurs,  which  stands  alone  even 
in  this  wondrous  history  of  God-man  abasement.  As 
to  its  direct  causes,  it  is  to  us  absolutely  incomprehen- 
sible ;  yet  one  fact  sufficiently  explains  it.  Having 
made  Himself  answerable  to  Eternal  Justice  for  the 
sins  of  mankind  ;  their  sins,  in  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture, were  laid  upon  Him,  to  be  avenged  in  His  sacred 
person  ;  nor  was  He  spared  any,  the  least  portion,  of 
the  infliction  required  of  Him  by  that  terrible  justice. 
This  infliction  was  not  the  same, — it  could  not  have 
been  the  same, — which  it  would  have  been  if  it  had 
been  received  by  us  in  our  persons  ;  but  it  was  what 
only  He,  as  uniting  in  Himself  the  finite  with  the  in- 
finite, could  have  either  sustained  or  received.  It 
dealt  with  "  Him  who  knew  no  sin,"  as  if,  to  use  in- 


248  THE  REDEEMER. 

spired  language,  He  ha:l  been  "Sin  itself,"  the  em- 
bodiment of  whatever  could  be  called  sin.  It  ex- 
pressed itself  in  effects  and  demonstrations  answerable 
to  this  representation.  Not  only  in  insult,  mockery, 
scourging,  crucifixion,  from  those  for  whom  he  suffered, 
but  in  prayers  and  supplications,  with  strong  crying 
and  tears,  to  Him  who  was  able  to  save  Him  from 
death ;  in  a  sweat,  as  it  were,  of  great  drops  of  blood, 
falling  down  to  the  ground  ;  in  a  loud  outcry  on  the 
cross,  in  which  He  proclaimed  Himself  forsaken  of 
God  ;  and,  finally,  in  a  preternatural  death,  succeeded 
by  entombment  in  "  the  heart  of  the  earth."  These, 
attended  by  profoundly  symbolical  phenomena  of 
nature,  in  heaven  and  earth,  and  the  shades  of  death, 
are  the  interpreters  to  the  world  of  what  has  been 
called  emphatically  The  Passion  of  the  Redeemer. 
They  do  not  explain  its  psychology,  or  mode  of  pos- 
sibility, or  how  the  finite  and  infinite  could  have  the 
interagency  which  was  involved  in  it ;  but  the  know- 
ledge of  this,  which  doubtless  no  finite  mind  is  capable 
of  receiving,  was  not  necessary.  The  facts  which 
God  has  made  as  ever  living,  ever  present  realities  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world,  are  sufficient.  It  is  enough 
that  these  facts,  by  the  ordering  of  God,  set  forth,  like 
the  sun  in  the  firmament,  the  great  certainty  they  in- 
volve, namely,  that  one  of  the  Divine  Trinity,  leaving 
His  estate  of  glory  with  his  coequals  in  Godhead,  and 
assuming  under  His  Divine  Personality  the  nature  of 
man,  became  the  subject  of  such  humiliation  and  suffer- 
ing as  the  facts  attest — this  was  enough.  The  demon- 
stration could  not  be  made  greater  that  the  satisfaction 


THE  REDEEMER.  249 

to  Justice  was  complete,  the  indignation  of  the  Divine 
goodness  against  sin  adequately  revealed. 

There  remains,  however,  another  consideration 
which  immensely  increases  the  estimation  of  this  doing 
of  Divine  Love.  It  is  that  of  the  Relationship  of  the 
God-man  to  the  other  Divine  Persons.  The  eternally 
Three-one  are  in  their  unity  eternally  related  to  each 
other.  They  are  so  of  necessity,  even  as  they  are  of 
necessity  united  in  the  essence.  And  their  inter-rela- 
tions are  grounds  of  special  affections  and  interagen- 
cies among  them.  As  a  fact, — a  fact  unexplained  and 
doubtless  unexplainable, — God  has  affirmed  nothing 
concerning  His  Deity,  not  even  His  essential  unity, 
more  explicit  than  this.  Especially,  He  has  announced 
nothing  more  impressively,  than  that  He  who  bore  the 
sins  of  mankind  was  a  Person  of  ineffable  nearness  and 
endearment  to  Himself.  He  calls  Him  His  own,  His 
only  begotten  Son.  And,  farther,  He  tells  us,  that 
this  His  Son,  who  offered  Himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  us, 
was  His  own  gift  to  us.  The  essential  coequality  of 
this  Person  with  the  other  Divine  Persons,  made  it 
impossible  that  He  should  be  given  against  His  own 
desire  ;  but  that  desire  presupposed,  His  Filial  re- 
lationship to  God,  gave  possibility  to  His  being  given 
of  His  Eternal  Father,  and  the  possibility  became 
real.  So  that  a  complete  statement  of  the  subject  re- 
quires the  assertion,  that  in  order  that  Mercy,  in  the 
fulness  of  its  blessings,  might  be  extended  to  mankind, 
God  gave  His  own  coequal  Son,  who  Himself  desired 
to  be  so  given,  that  through  a  substitutionary  sacrifice 
made  by  this  Divine  Person,  the  reign  of  Mercy  might 
11* 


250  THE  REDEEMER. 

be  consistent  with  Justice,  or  be  in  harmony  with  all 
he  Divine  perfections. 

This  is  the  Atonement — anticipated  from  the  be- 
ginning, available  as  soon  as  man  fell,  accomplished  in 
due  time, — it  lays  a  foundation  for  the  throne  and  domi- 
nion of  Mercy  firmer  and  more  enduring  than  the 
foundation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth. 


IX— THE  WORK  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

Though  man,  by  his  first  disobedience,  subjected 
himself  to  the  despotism  of  sin,  he  did  not  cease  to  be 
a  free  agent.  He  was  free  in  that  act  of  willing,  and 
he  continued  no  less  free  afterwards.  His  will  re- 
mained to  him,  with  all  the  constitutional  properties 
requisite  to  volition.  He  could  not  but  will  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  desire,  but  he  was  under  no  compul- 
sion. There  is  no  higher  freedom — higher  cannot  be 
conceived — than  that  which  he  had :  the  power  of 
willing,  and  opportunity  to  exercise  it  according  to 
prevailing  desire.  It  is,  in  itself,  impossible  to  will 
without  desire,  or  under  no  influence  from  former  acts 
of  willing ;  or,  after  once  acting,  under  no  disposition 
to  one  act  rather  than  another :  And  if  so  acting  was 
the  indispensable  condition  of  freedom,  there  would  be 
no  freedom  in  the  universe ;  the  Infinite  Himself  were 
not  free,  a  predisposition  to  good  volition  being  a  ne- 
cessity of  His  Nature. 

Nevertheless,  since  by  the  immutable  law  of  volition, 
the  act  of  willing  must  follow  desire,  or  the  will  be  as 
the  greatest  apparent  good,  at  the  moment  of  its  de- 
termination ;  and  since  evil,  at  that  moment,  always 
has  the  appearance  of  good,  if  sin  has  command,  the 
certainty  remains  absolute  of  man's  willing  in  the  ser- 
vice of  sin,  until  its  power  to  deceive  be  overcome. 

(251) 


252  THE   WORK  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

Evil  will  ever  seem  best  to  him,  when  the  act  of  will- 
ing is  to  have  place.  The  greatest  good  will  have  the 
appearance  of  evil.  Urgency  of  persuasion,  objective 
appliance  of  whatever  kind,  can  make  no  difference  ; 
none,  at  least,  in  favor  of  the  choice  of  good.  There- 
fore Goodness,  in  order  to  become  mercy  to  man,  had 
more  to  do  than  to  reveal  the  Divine  indignation 
against  sin,  or  make  an  atonement  for  it,  as  explained 
in  the  preceding  number.  It  had  to  meet  the  further 
necessity  of  displacing  the  power  of  sin  in  man.  It 
had  to  put  out  of  its  way  a  deep-rooted,  subjective 
hindrance  in  the  nature  of  man,  as  well  as  an  objective 
one  interposed  by  the  Avenging  justice  of  God,  or  by 
its  own  necessity  of  being  consistent  with  itself,  or  of 
not  so  doing  good,  as  to  do  evil  on  the  whole,  or  fail 
of  the  greatest  ultimate  good.  This  necessity  was 
upon  it.  How  was  it  to  be  met?  In  ignorance  of  the 
condecencies,  which,  in  truth,  are  necessities  of  the 
Divine  activity,  simple  omnipotence  or  arbitrary  will 
might  have  seemed  sufficient  for  the  purpose  ;  but,  in 
fact,  it  was  not.  God,  as  God,  the  All  and  Ever  Per- 
fect, could  not  so  meet  it.  There  was  a  possibility 
of  meeting  it,  but  the  ground  of  this  possibility,  like 
that  of  forbearing  to  punish  sin,  lay  not  in  the  simple 
will  or  power,  but  in  the  Constitution  of  the  Deity,  as 
a  Pluri-personal  Being.  This  great  peculiarity  in  the 
nature  or  constitution  of  the  Godhead,  ever  an  "of- 
fence" to  the  proud  wisdom  of  the  world,  contains,  in 
this  respect  also,  the  only  foundation  of  hope  for  man. 
According  to  God's  revelation  of  Himself  to  us  in  His 
Word,  the  economy,  if  we  may  so  speak,  of  the  agencies' 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  253 

of  the  Godhead,  the  order  of  operations  among  the  dis- 
tinct Persons  of  the  Trinity,  an  order  depending  on 
that  of  their  subsistence, — ascribes  the  beginning  of 
all  Divine  works  to  the  First  Person;  their  immedi- 
ate production,  subsistence,  and  sustcntation,  to  the 
Second;  and  all  concluding,  completing,  and' perfect- 
ing acts,  to  the  Third.  With  reference  to  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  (Gen.  i.  2,  Job  xxvi.  13);  to  man,  after 
his  creation  (Gen.  ii.  7,  Job  xxxiii.  4);  to  the  furnish- 
ing of  man  with  extraordinary  virtues  and  gifts  for 
special  works,  including  even  the  God  Man  Himself 
(Judges  iii.  10,  Zach.  iv.  6,  Is.  lxi.  1),  the  agency  in 
this  last  sphere,  belongs  specifically  to  the  Spirit.  It 
is  not  for  us  to  know  the  reason,  the  fact  is  enough, — 
a  fact  having  its  basis  in  the  Nature  of  the  Deity,  and  so 
equalizing  the  necessity  for  the  agency  of  the  Spirit 
in  order  to  displace  the  power  of  sin  in  man,  with  that 
of  the  Divine  existence  itself. 

As  it  was  the  work  of  the  Second  Divine  Person, 
then,  to  make  the  Atonement,  so  this  other  work  with- 
out which  the  Atonement  would  have  been  made  in 
vain,  was  the  province  of  the  Third.  The  two  works 
were  correlated  to  each  other  ;  the  last  depending  on 
the  first,  as  its  indispensable  condition.  It  was  per- 
formed in  the  world,  as  was  every  work  of  Mercy,  be- 
fore the  Atonement  was  actually  made ;  but  as  it  was 
needful  (John  xvi.  7)  that  the  Atonement  should  be 
made  before  the  Spirit  could  come  in  the  fulness  of  His 
peculiar  power,  so  was  it,  by  virtue  of  the  Atonement, 
anticipated,  that  He  previously  exercised  His  dis- 
tinctive office.     (Rev.  xiii.  8X  '.  •■'        •' 


254  THE   WORK  OF  THE  SPIRIT. 

His  operation,  in  accomplishing  it,  is  generally  two- 
fold, objective  and  subjective,  outward  and  inward; 
and  these,  though  not  invariably  connected,  are  so  re- 
lated to  each  other,  that  the  latter  seldom,  if  ever,  has 
place, in  adult  age,  if  the  other  is  wanting.  The  rela- 
tion is  not  that  of  cause  and  effect,  nor  does  it  in  the 
least  interfere  with  the  sovereignty  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
inward  operation ;  but  the  antecedence  of  the  outward 
is,  ordinarily,  at  least,  indispensable  to  the  performance 
of  the  other.  With  reference  to  the  displacement  of 
the  power  of  sin  by  the  inward  operation,  its  chief  end 
is  to  give  a  just  impression  of  the  character  of  that 
power,  the  fact  of  its  all-ruinous  delusiveness,  its  dire 
malignity,  its  utter  renouncement  of  reason,  of  a  pure 
conscience,  of  true  self-interest,  of  self-respect,  of  the 
just  exercise  of  every  sentiment  of  humanity,  as  well 
as  of  the  Supreme  authority  of  infinite  rectitude  and 
goodness.  It  seeks  to  rouse  up  every  part  of  man's 
rational,  moral,  godlike  nature, — to  make  everything 
great  and  noble  in  man,  insurgent  and  rebellious, 
against  the  deep  debasement  under  which  sin  is  hold- 
ing him  as  its  willing,  most  wretched  captive.  There 
is  nothing,  except  sin  itself,  to  which  it  does  not  direct 
its  appeals,  with  the  certainty,  in  so  far  as  they  are 
heeded,  of  a  favorable  response.  There  is  in  these  ap- 
peals a  didactic,  argumentative,  benign,  suasory  force, 
— that  of  the  inspired  Word  of  God,  quick,  powerful, 
sharper  than  a  two-edged  sword,  a  searcher  of  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart, — not  to  be  resisted 
by  anything  simply  human  in  man.  And  while  they 
cannot  prevail  with  reference  to  the  main  purpose, — 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  SPIRIT.  255 

deliverance  from  the  tyranny  of  sin,  the  effect,  exclu- 
sively, of  the  Spirit's  inward  agency, — they  can,  in  a 
sense,  approximate  this  ;  they  can  make  the  yoke  of 
sin  too  grievous  to  be  borne  ;  they  can  give  a  keen, 
intense  conviction  of  the  cruelty,  the  enormous  wrong 
and  iniquity,  the  turpitude  and  hatefulness  of  its  bon- 
dage ;  of  absolute  helplessness  also,  or  the  abolition  of 
all  hope  of  self-deliverance ;  they  can  elicit  longing, 
sighing,  imploring  outcries  for  aid ;  and  so,  peradven- 
ture,  make  it  proper  and  suitable  for  the  Spirit  to  do, 
what  otherwise  it  might  not  seem  meet,  and  there- 
fore not  possible  for  Him  to  do, — penetrate,  with  His 
inworking  energy,  to  the  innermost  recess  of  nature, 
where  sin  hath  its  seat,  and  supersede  its  dominion  by 
His  own, — the  Supreme  ascendency  of  Truth  and  Holi- 
ness, over  desire  and  consequent  determinations  of  the 
will. 


X.  — MEDIATION. 

The  Atonement  and  the  Work  of  the  Spirit  did  not 
comprehend  the  whole  of  the  Plan  of  Mercy  to  man  ; 
these  were  connected  with  another  Provision  of  high- 
est peculiarity. 

It  was  not  possible  that  the  Divine  Person,  who  was 
made  flesh  and  died  for  our  sins,  should  have  remained 
under  the  power  of  death.  (Acts  ii.  24.)  But  if  it 
had  been  possible  it  could  not  have  proved  a  reality, 
without  losing  the  end  of  His  incarnation  and  death. 
The  Atonement  would  have  been  completed,  but  it 
would  have  been  without  fruit.  If  we  are  reconciled 
to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son,  it  is  by  His  life  that 
we  are  saved.  (Rom.  v.  10.)  Moreover,  the  Spirit 
could  not  have  been  given  if  Jesus  had  not  been  glori- 
fied. (John  vii.  39  ;  xiv.  7.)  But  immensely  more 
was  necessary — a  vast  sequel  of  administrative  agency 
over  whatsoever  was  to  come  to  pass  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  Royal  authority  over  the  universe 
must  be  committed  to  Christ,  and  exercised  by  Him 
until  the  end  of  all  things.  (Phil.  ii.  9,  10  ;  1  Cor. 
xv.  24.) 

Even  before  His  death  He  had  Lordship  over  all 

things.     Life,   death,  demons,  angels,  the  wind  and 

seas,  nature  in  all  its  spheres,  took  orders  from  Him. 

Nay,  the  Lord  Jehovah,  the  Ruling  God  under  the 

(256) 


MEDIATION.  257 

Old  Testament,  was  the  Cod-man  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. But  it  was  not  until  He  had  risen  from  the 
dead  and  ascended  to  the  Father,  that  His  solemn  en- 
thronement over  the  universe  took  place.  That  event 
was  reserved  as  the  Testimonial  of  God's  estimation 
of  His  infinite  self-abasement  for  man's  sake.  (Com- 
pare Phil.  ii.  6-11  with  Psalms  xxiv.  7-10.)  It  had 
its  reason,  its  ground  of  possibility  in  that  self-abase- 
ment :  He  could  not  otherwise  have  been  exalted. 
As  a  Divine  Person,  simply,  the  supremacy  over  all 
things  was  His  already.  It  was  originally  and  neces- 
sarily His  ;  He  could  not  have  divested  Himself  of  it. 
But  after  uniting  in  Himself  the  Human  Nature  to  the 
Divine,  and  exchanging  the  Form  of  God  for  the  form 
of  aservant.  He  became,  in  this  Theanthrojnc,  Divine- 
Human  character,  capable  of  exaltation  ;  and  God,  at 
the  proper  time,  made  Him  supreme  Monarch  of  the 
whole  creation,  He  gave  Him  this  infinite  dominion,  to 
the  end  that  the  object  of  His  death  might  be  secured. 
(Eph.  i.  22.)  It  was  necessary  that  He  should  have  it ; 
it  comprehends  the  potentiality,  the  possibility,  of  the 
full  accomplishment  of  this  object.  (Eph.  iv.  10.)  In 
the  fact  itself  of  His  receiving  it,  in  the  evidence  here- 
by afforded  of  the  infinite  value  of  the  Atonement, 
there  was  a  potential  bearing  on  the  attainment  of  this 
object ;  but  His  having  it  was  beyond  this  influential, 
and  even  necessary,  in  manifold  respects.  It  was 
needed  to  perpetuate  the  virtue  of  the  Atonement. 
There  were,  it  is  true,  provisions  on  earth  for  this  pur- 
pose ;  but  there  was  a  necessity  for  this  Heavenly  pro- 
vision also  ;  without  it  all  earthly  arrangements  would 


258  MEDIATION. 

have  been  of  no  avail.  A  vitalizing,  energizing  power 
was  demanded  to  keep  these  arrangements  from  be- 
coming unfruitful,  perhaps  even  forgotten  and  lost ; 
and  it  was  only  the  Theanthropic  kingdom  that  could 
supply  this  power.  (Eph.  i.  20-23.)  But  there  was 
a  necessity  for  Divine  influences  beyond  the  virtue  of 
the  Atonement,  however  perfectly  conserved  and  act- 
ualized. The  specific  end  of  the  Atonement  was  to 
remove  the  obstacle  which  our  sin,  as  incurring  the 
displeasure  of  God.  had  put  in  the  way  of  mercy.  (Ro- 
mans iv.  25.)  A  further  influence  was  required  to 
fulfil  the  designs  of  mercy  ;  one,  namely,  from  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ.  (Rom.  iv.  25,  second  clause.) 
And  more  than  even  this  was  necessary :  for  neither 
the  death  of  Christ  nor  His  resurrection  from  the 
dead,  by  virtue  of  which  we  are  justified,  sufficed  to 
complete  our  salvation.  After  justification  we  are 
still  compassed  by  infirmity,  and  exposed  to  tempta- 
tion and  to  all  the  forms  of  earthly  affliction  and  sor- 
row, and  are  incessantly  falling  into  new  sin,  so  that 
if  no  further  provision  had  been  made  for  us  the  for- 
mer ones  would  have  failed.  The  additional  exigen- 
cies were  met,  but  they  were  not  otherwise  to  be 
met  than  by  the  Theanthropic  elevation  of  Christ. 
For  the  way  of  mercy  now,  as  in  its  former  stages, 
might  not  be  arbitrary  ;  the  requisite  aid  could  not 
come  to  us,  from  simple  Will,  though  clothed  with 
Omnipotence.  The  ability  to  aid  us  as  we  need 
had  its  ground  in  the  qualifications  and  offices  which 
belong  to  the  God-man,  as  such,  in  His  exalted  estate. 
To  his  possession  of  these  it  was  necessary  that  He 


MEDIATION.  259 

should  have  had  a  personal  experience  of  our  trials, 
in  the  days  of  His  flesh  ;  been  touched  with  a  feeling 
of  our  infirmities  ;  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are, 
though  without  sin  ;  and  then,  having  been  "  made 
higher  than  the  heavens,"  and  assumed  the  Throne  of 
Universal  Empire,  it  was  further  necessary  that  He 
should  avail  Himself  of  the  exercise  of  an  August 
Function,  of  which  we  are  yet  to  make  mention.  Only 
on  this  condition  could  He  enable  Himself  to  succor 
us  adequately  in  our  temptations.  (Hebrews  vii.  25, 
26,  compared  with  ii.  18.)  Why  it  was  so  we  do  not 
fully  comprehend  ;  it  is  enough  that  we  know  the  fact, 
with  its  necessity  and  its  sufficiency.  The  certainty, 
the  possibility  even,  of  our  salvation  to  the  uttermost, 
could  have  had  no  foundation  out  of  the  Theanthropic 
Reign  of  Christ. 

But  a  full  view  has  not  yet  been  taken  of  the  ground 
of  necessity  for  this  Reign.  While  it  was  required 
for  the  completion  of  our  salvation,  there  were  sub- 
sidiary and  ulterior  purposes  which  could  not  be 
otherwise  answered.  It  was  necessary  that  He  should 
have  all  power  in  heaven  and  earth  to  carry  forward 
His  great  undertaking  through  the  coming  ages  of 
the  world,  and  to  bring  the  history  of  the  world  to  its 
predestined  end.  Supreme  authority  over  all  nations 
was  required.  (Matt,  xxviii.  18-20.)  He  must  be 
the  Prince  of  the  kings  and  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth.  (Rev.  i.  5.)  Rebellious  empires  were  to  be 
overthrown  ;  the  powers  of  darkness,  the  gates  of  hell 
were  to  be  vanquished  ;  Satan  was  to  be  cast  out  and 
consigned  to  the  bottomless  pit ;  death,  the  last  enemy, 


260  MEDIATION. 

was  to  be  destroyed  ;  the  creature  was  to  be  delivered 
from  the  bondage  of  corruption  ;  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  were  to  be  renewed  ;  the  peace  of  the  universe 
was  to  be  conquered.  The  book  of  the  Apocalypse 
gives  the  shadows  of  the  things  which  are  compre- 
hended in  the  immense  system  of  agencies  and  changes 
over  which  it  was  necessary  that  a  government,  sure 
of  success,  should  be  maintained.  What  breadths  of 
time,  what  cycles  of  civilization,  what  revolutions  of 
empire,  what  conflicts  of  kingdoms,  what  powers  of 
good  and  evil,  visible  and  invisible,  working  with  and 
counterworking  one  another — even  down  to  the  end 
of  the  world  !  On  no  shoulder  but  that  of  the  exalted 
and  enthroned  God-man  could  the  government  rest 
which  the  vast  exigence  required.  Infinite  Goodness, 
pursuing  justly  and  wisely  its  end,  could  not  dispense 
with  the  Theanthropic  Kingdom. 

Of  this  kingdom  the  grand  distinction  is  that  it  is 
Mediatorial  or  Priestly.  The  titles  God-man  and 
Mediator  are  of  the  same  significance.  The  monarch 
of  this  kingdom  is  styled  "  a  Priest  upon  his  Throne." 
(Zech.  vi.  13.)  The  regal  and  sacerdotal  functions  are 
combined  in  His  unparalleled  supremacy.  It  is  through 
the  virtue  of  a  Sacrifice  that  He  exercises  the  gov- 
ernment over  the  world.  All  royal  decrees,  com- 
mands, distributions  are  fulfilled  through  the  concur- 
rent exercise  of  a  great  High-Priesthood — the  presen- 
tation of  a  Sacrifice.  The  Sacrifice  is  the  same  that 
He  presented  when,  through  the  Eternal  Spirit,  He 
offered  Himself  without  spot  on  the  Cross.  The  pre- 
sentation now  is  through  Intercession.    It  implies  no 


MEDIATION.  261 

necessity,  it  does  not  admit  of  oral  or  formal  suppli- 
cations ;  it  consists  in  the  presence,  in  Heaven,  of  such 
a  one  as  He  is — the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  as  a  Lamb 
which  has  been  slain  —  with  those  scars  of  infinite 
honor  in  His  adorable  Person,  which  He  received  at 
His  immolation.  (Rev.  v.  6.)  These  ever-glorious 
scars,  the  prints  of  the  nails  in  His  hands  and  feet,  and 
the  cleft  in  His  side,  were  all  conspicuous  when  He 
ascended  the  Throne  ;  they  have  continued  to  be  so  ; 
they  constitute  the  Intercession — the  comprehensive 
virtue  and  strength  of  the  Mediatorial  Kingdom. 

The  duration  of  this  kingdom  is  limited.  It  will 
end  in  the  end  of  the  world.  The  necessity  for  it  will 
then  have  ceased  ;  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  estab- 
lished will  have  been  accomplished.  The  God-Man 
will  surrender  His  delegated  dominion  to  God,  even 
the  Father.  (1  Cor.  xv.  24.)  The  Mediatorial  will 
be  merged  into  the  Immediatoeial  kingdom,  and  the 
Son  himself  be  subject  to  Him  who  put  all  things  un- 
der Him.  The  Incarnate  Deity  will  remain  incarnate ; 
in  His  Divinity  coequal  and  coeternal  still,  as  of 
necessity  He  ever  must  be,  with  the  other  Divine  Per- 
sons ;  but  as  clothed  in  our  nature,  and  as  everlasting 
Head  of  His  Body  the  Church,  He  will  be  officially 
subordinate  to  God  ;  and  thenceforth  God,  as  such, 
the  Eternal  Three-One,  be  all  in  all:  All  in  all,  in 
the  delighted  consciousness  of  every  creature  through- 
out the  Realm  of  goodness  and  blessedness  ;  in  the 
exercise  of  government  all  in  all,  likewise,  to  the 
apprehension  and  everlasting  torment  of  unholy  beings 
in  the  prison  of  despair. 


XI.— JUSTIFICATION  BY  GRACE. 

Man,  in  his  first  estate,  being  sinless  or  innocent,  was 
legally  just  in  the  sight  of  God.  Perfectly  obedient 
to  the  precept  of  the  law,  he  was  not  obnoxious  to  its 
penalty.  By  sinning  he  changed  his  relations  to  law. 
Might  he  by  any  means  be  put  back  into  his  original 
relations  ?    Might  he  again  become  legally  just  ? 

Innocent  again,  he  certainly  cannot  become.  The 
same  person  cannot  be  both  criminal  and  innocent.  If 
he  has  committed  an  offence,  he  may  repent  of  it,  he 
may  be  forgiven  ;  but  the  fact  remains  ;  character  and 
condition  may  change,  but  what  has  been,  cannot  cease 
to  have  been ;  it  may  be  atoned  for,  it  cannot  be  abol- 
ished. 

The  law,  then,  cannot  justify  one  who  has  trans- 
gressed it,  if  to  justify  means  to  make  or  pronounce  in- 
nocent. The  restoration  of  man,  therefore,  in  respect 
of  justification,  taking  this  term  in  its  strict  or  legal 
sense,  is  impossible.  No  arbitrary  act  of  will,  no  im- 
putation of  another's  innocence  or  merit,  though  it  be 
the  merit  of  condignily,  can  effect  the  legal  justification 
of  one  who  has  broken  the  law.  This  merit  can  by  no 
possibility  be  made  his,  any  more  than  the  desert  of 
punishment  can  be  made  the  desert  of  reward.  The 
question  whether  a  sinner  may  be  justified  again,  in 
the  sense  in  which  he  was  justified  before  he  trans- 

(262) 


JUSTIFICATION  BY  GRACE.  263 

gressed  the  law,  is,  by  his  having  transgressed  it,  an- 
swered in  the  negative. 

Is  it  proper,  then,  to  apply  the  term  justification 
to  a  state  in  relation  to  law,  into  which  a  sinner  may 
by  any  means  be  brought  ?  The  fact  that  the  term  is 
not  only  so  applied  in  Scripture,  but,  in  this  applica- 
tion of  it,  intensely  emphasized  and  insisted  upon,  su- 
persedes this  question.  The  propriety,  if  not  the  in- 
dispensableness  of  using  this  term,  in  this  application 
of  it,  is  not  a  subject  of  legitimate  inquiry  or  doubt. 
And  the  question,  doubtless,  never  would  have  arisen 
— there  would  have  been  no  place  for  it,  even  in 
thought — if  just  views  had  always  been  taken  of  the 
relation  to  law  in  which  the  Atonement  puts  a  believ- 
er— one  who  avails  himself  of  its  benefit.  This  rela- 
tion, though  not  that  precisely  which  obedience  to  the 
law  constitutes,  is  at  least  of  equivalent  virtue.  It 
makes  it  unnecessary  on  any  account  to  punish  the  be- 
liever, by  answering  all  the  ends  of  his  punishment ; 
and  exemption  from  this  is  all  that,  in  justice,  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  can  claim  from  God.  For  aught  be- 
yond this,  God,  in  justice,  can  be  in  debt  to  no  creature. 
Creatures  owe  God  their  perfect  obedience ;  but  He 
owes  and  can  owe  them  nothing,  beyond  the  negative 
good  of  not  doing  them  an  injury.  All  that  He  does 
for  them,  more  than  this,  is  the  fruit  of  His  goodness, 
not  of  that  justice  which  must  acknowledge  and  pay  a 
debt,  or  become  injustice.  There  is  no  creature  to  whom 
continuance  in  being  is  desirable,  who  is  not  indebted 
to  the  Divine  goodness  even  for  this.  Everything,  in 
such  a  creature's  existence,  except  iu  so  far  as  he  may 


264  JUSTIFICATION  BY  GRACE. 

have  harmed  himself. — everything  in  so  far  as  God's 
dealing  with  him  is  concerned,  has  been  simply  good, 
up  to  this  moment ;  and  if  from  this  moment  he  should 
cease  to  be,  there  would  be  no  abatement  of  that  good- 
ness of  which  his  life,  from  its  beginning,  has  been 
full,  and  no  ground  of  complaint  against  God,  so  far 
as  regards  this  creature's  history.  If  the  Power  which 
made,  and  has  been  incessantly  upholding  him,  should 
withdraw  Itself,  and  leave  him  to  pass  back  into  noth- 
ness  out  of  which  it  brought  him,  it  would  do  him  no 
wrong ;  nor  might  any  one  call  It  to  account.  God  is 
answerable  to  Himself,  and  to  Himself  only,  for  the 
exercises  of  His  Almighty  power.  Should  He  make 
new  worlds,  and,  after  a  time,  unmake  them,  who  can 
say  that  He  would  not  be  doing  right?  God  owes  it 
to  Himself  to  bless  His  obedient  creatures  ;  it  becomes 
Him  as  the  All-Perfect,  the  All-Good,  thus  to  deal  with 
them ;  if  He  has  given  thern  His  promise,  self-regard 
requires  Him  to  fulfil  it.  But  in  respect  to  their  per 
sonal  desert  or  claim,  its  limit  has  been  defined  ;  they 
have,  and  can  have,  no  merit  of  condignity  beyond  the 
negative  one,  not  to  be  dealt  with  injuriously  :  a  merit 
of  this  kind,  a  claim  on  justice,  beyond  that,  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  very  idea  of  the  Deity  as  the  Fountain 
of  all  being,  and  all  good,  and  with  the  necessary  rela- 
tions between  Him  and  His  dependent  creatures.  (See 
Rom.  xi.  85, 36.) 

Now,  so  far  as  regards  this  claim,  though  the  Atone- 
ment cannot  create  it,  on  the  part  of  a  believer,  or 
take  away  from  him  the  desert  of  punishment,  yet  it 
can  and  does  take  away  all  ground  or  reason  for  the 


JUSTIFICATION  BY  GRACE.  265 

infliction  of  punishment ;  and  thus  put  him  virtually  in 
that  relation  to  law,  which  he  would  have  been  in,  if 
he  had  not  broken  it.  It  cannot  be  said  that  he  would 
be  dealt  with  unjustly,  or  as  he  does  not  deserve  to  be, 
if  he  should  be  punished ;  but  his  punishment  would  be 
unnecessary,  or  to  no  end  ulterior  to  itself;  it  would 
be  punishment  for  punishment's  sake,  which,  however 
merited,  cannot  be  executed  where  goodness  bears 
sway.  The  Atonement  offers  itself  as  a  substitute  for 
punishment;  as  a  full  equivalent  for  it,  and  thus,  ex- 
cepting only  the  believer's  ill-desert,  as  availing  to 
form  the  relation  to  law,  in  respect  to  him,  which 
would  have  existed  if  he  had  not  been  disobedient  to 
it.  And,  as  his  justification,  in  that  case,  would  have 
been  simply  and  only  a  recognition  of  him  as  unamen- 
able to  punishment,  that  is,  virtually,  a  justification 
which  he  obtains  through  the  Atonement — it  renders 
him,  on  the  ground  of  a  perfect  equivalent  or  substi- 
tute for  punishment,  unamenable  and  unexposed  to  a 
penal  affliction. 

It  may  be  thought  that  justification,  in  this  view  of 
it,  is  nothing  more  than  pardon  ;  but  the  difference  is 
fundamental :  pardon  or  forgiveness  is  included  in 
justification  (see  Rom.  iv.  6-8.) ;  but  pardon  may  be 
arbitrary,  or,  at  least,  for  a  reason,  different  from  an 
atonement  or  a  satisfaction  to  punitive  justice.  In  jus- 
tification there  is  this  satisfaction,  and  it  is  precisely 
this  which  discriminates  the  idea  of  justification  from 
that  of  mere  mercy  in  whatever  form.  In  order 
to  constitute  the  justification  of  a  sinner,  there  must 
be  a  pardon,  but  to  this  must  be  added  an  Atonement 
12 


2G6  JUSTIFICATION  ' B?  GRACE. 

as  its  ground — a  provision,  the  virtue  of  which  is  to 
put  him  who  has  the  advantage  of  it  in  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  law,  so  far  as  regards  the  reasons  for  pun- 
ishment, as  obedience  to  the  law  constitutes  and  im- 
plies. 

It  has  been  thought  that  the  term  justification  is  not 
applicable  to  one's  state  in  relation  to  law,  unless  this 
include  something  more  than  unamenableness  to  pun- 
ishment ;  additional  to  this,  he  must  have  a  legal  title 
to  eternal  life.  But  this  is  not  included  even  in  a 
strictly  legal  justification  :  obedience  itself  confers  no 
such  title,  as  has  been  said  already.  A  person  legally 
justified,  as  long  as  he  lives  without  sinning,  cannot  be 
punished  :  God,  moreover,  may  owe  it  to  Himself  as 
good  and  the  friend  of  goodness,  to  show  such  a  per- 
son favor,  perhaps  eminent  favor ;  but  if  he  does,  it  is 
not  a  debt  due  to  him  from  God  in  strict  justice ;  he 
has  no  claim  on  his  Maker,  on  this  or  any  ground, 
even  for  one  moment's  continuance  in  being. 

They  who  say  that  justification  includes  a  legal  title 
to  salvation,  give  the  Atonement  the  virtue  of  confer- 
ring this  title.  But  if  the  existence  of  the  title  be  an 
impossibility,  the  Atonement  cannot  have  the  virtue 
they  ascribe  to  it.  We  have  seen  that  a  legal  title, 
even  to  exemption  from  punishment  where  it  has  been 
incurred,  is  an  impossibility.  As  to  this,  even  a  merit 
of  condig)iity,  a  claim  in  law  or  justice,  in  one  who  has 
incurred  it  by  transgression,  is  an  absurdity,  a  contra- 
diction in  terms.  What  place,  then,  is  there  for  the 
idea  of  a  legal  title  to  eternal  life?  And  for  what 
reason  were  such  a  title  to  be  desired  if  it  were  a  pos- 


JUSTIFICATION  BY  OR  ACE.  267 

sibility  ?     Or  what  advantage  could  it  give  its  pos- 
sessor which  he  may  not  have  without  it,  unless  it  be 
an  advantage  to  be  free  of  the  Divine  goodness,  and  to 
have  self-merit  as  the  measure  of  one's  happiness  ?     A 
title  to  anything  in  justice,  or  as  a  debt,  is  not  a  con- 
dition of  receiving  good  from  God :  He  requires  no 
such  title ;  He  is  already  more  than  willing,  for  the 
sake  of  the  Atonement,  to  confer  the  highest  favors  on 
those  to  whom  the  only  debt  due  from  Him  is  eternal 
death.     The  Atonement  itself  was  required,  not  from 
a  parsimony  of  goodness,  but  rather  that  the  way  of 
goodness,  on  the  largest  scale,  might  be  open  and  un- 
obstructed.    And  the  Atonement  itself  was  the  fruit  of 
goodness,  and  of  all  its  fruits  unspeakably  greatest. 
From  first  to  last  the  salvation  of  man — the  Atone- 
ment, forgiveness,  eternal   life,  for  the   Atonement's 
sake — nas  goodness,  not  justice,  not  obligation,  as  its 
fountaiu.     The  whole  comes,  it  is  true,  through  the 
Atonement — the   immediate  producing  cause  of  the 
whole.     It  is  for  Christ's  sake,  for  the  sake  of  His  infi- 
nite sacrifice,  His  obedience  unto  death,  His  personal 
intercession,  that  God  exalts  the  believer  to  the  honors 
and  felicities  of  His  everlasting  kingdom ;  treats  him, 
to  use  the  language  of  Scripture,  as  if  he  were  "  the 
righteousness  of  God ;"  justifies  him  with  a  justifica- 
tion which  makes  him  a  son  and  an  heir  of  God,  a 
joint-heir  with  Christ :  But  while  this  justification  has 
its  ground  in  the  work  of  Christ,  it  is  not  on  that  ac- 
count the  less  gratuitous,  the  less  independent  of  a 
claim  in  justice,  the  less  an  act  of  pure  and  absolute 
grace.     The  Biblical  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  a 


268  JUSTIFICATION  BY  GRACE. 

sinner's  justification  is  nowhere  more  complete  or  pre- 
cise than  in  Romans  iii.  24:  "Being  justified  feeelt 
by  His  grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus." 


XII.— FAITH. 

There  are  two  senses  in  which  the  epithet  spiritual 
may  be  applied  to  man  :  as  signifying  either  the  im- 
material or  spiritual  part  of  his  nature,  or  a  certain 
state  or  quality  of  the  latter.  In  the  former  meaning 
it  distinguishes  the  soul  from  the  body ;  in  the  other 
it  distinguishes  regenerate  from  unregenerate  man. 
An  unregenerate  man,  even  in  respect  to  his  immateri- 
ality or  spirit,  is  called  carnal  (1  Cor.  iii.  3  ;  Col.  ii. 
18)  ;  a  regenerate  man,  as  such,  is  called  spiritual. 
That  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit ;  that  is,  has 
a  spiritual  nature  like  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  whom 
he  is  born.  And  this  new  spiritual  nature  which  comes 
of  the  second  birth,  has  a  spiritual  understanding,  or 
power  of  spiritual  discernment  (Rom.  viii.  6,  7  ;  Col.  i. 
9  ;  1  Cor.  ii.  15) ;  "  A  new  foundation  laid  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  soul  for  a  new  kind  of  exercises  of  the 
natural  understanding."*  Hence  the  explanation  of 
man's  deliverance  from  that  moral  deceptiveness  or 
power  of  infatuation  in  which  sin  begins,  and  by  which 
it  maintains  its  dominion  within  him.  It  is  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  this  new  power  or  principle  of  nature  that 
the  spell  of  sin  is  broken,  that  good  and  evil  are  again 
discerned  in  their  proper  characters,  and  the  reign  of 
rectitude  or  goodness  established. 

*  President  Edwards. 

(269) 


270  FAITH. 

Now  that  which  is  objectively  correlative  to  this 
new  principle,  toward  which  it  acts,  and  from  which 
it  takes  its  impressions,  is  not  a  direct  presentation  of 
things,  but  a  representation  of  them  by  means  of  state- 
ment or  testimony,  namely,  the  Word  of  God — the 
outward  witness  of  the  Spirit.  In  respect  to  the 
things  themselves,  God  is  a  Testifier  or  Affirmant, 
apart  from  whose  Word  there  is  no  possibility  of  our 
knowing  them,  no  evidence  to  us  of  their  truth  or  ex- 
istence. If  they  become  realities  to  us,  if  they  impress 
themselves  upon  us,  they  do  so  no  otherwise  than 
through  the  medium  of  this  Word,  which  has  this  in- 
fluence only  as  it  is  accredited  or  believed.  This 
accounts  for  the  application  of  the  term  Faith  to  that 
use  or  exercise  of  the  spiritual  understanding  by  which 
we  are  said  to  discern  or  know  these  things. 

It  is  not  possible  to  give  a  strict  definition  of  Faith. 
Like  vision  or  hearing  it  can  no  otherwise  be  under- 
stood than  by  its  function  or  what  it  does.  In  regard 
to  this  the  Biblical  assertion  is,  that  Faith  is  what 
makes  the  contents  of  the  Divine  Word  as  present 
realities  to  the  believer,  (Heb.  xi.  1).  These  contents — 
simple  assertions — are  matters  of  as  perfect  certitude 
to  him  as  things  which  he  sees,  hears,  or  handles  ;  and 
it  is  his  faith  which  gives  them  this  certitude.  And 
the  reason  why  it  does  this  is,  that  that  which  attests 
them  is  what  it  is,  the  Word  op  God.  He  has  no 
conception,  no  knowledge  of  them,  except  what  this 
Word  gives  him ;  they  surpass  his  power  of  compre- 
hension ;  many  of  them  are  futurities,  which  only  Om- 
niscience can  know,  and  only  Omnipotence  can  actu- 


FAITH.  271 

alize;  and  were  they  not  declared  by  God  Himself, 
it  would  be  simple  credulity  or  folly  to  believe  them. 
But  because,  and  only  because,  the  Mouth  of  God  hath 
spoken  them,  they  are  to  that  new  power  of  discern- 
ment which  belongs  to  him  as  a  regenerate  or  spiritual 
person,  as  certain  and  real  as  objects  of  sight  are  to 
the  eye. 

What  gives  them  this  reality  is,  the  correlation  be- 
tween this  new  spiritual  sense  and  God  Himself  as  ob- 
jective to  it.  It  is  this  sense  which  makes  the  Deity 
in  His  proper  nature  a  reality  to  man.  The  world  is 
a  revelation  of  the  glory  of  God  (Ps.  xix.  1,  Rom.  i. 
20) ;  but  it  is  such  in  effect  only  to  a  spiritual  mind. 
The  unregenerate  are  without  God  in  the  world  (Eph. 
ii.  12).  Even  the  inspired  Word  of  God  is  no  revela- 
tion to  them  (1  Cor.  ii.  14).  Being  destitute  of  spiritual 
sense  or  understanding,  there  is  no  possibility  to  them 
of  the  spiritual  knowledge  of  God  any  more  than  there 
is  of  the  intellectual  knowledge  of  Him  to  irrational 
creatures.  But  let  one  have  this  new  sense,  and  God, 
in  the  glory  of  His  nature,  becomes  the  only  reality ; 
all  being,  all  goodness,  all  else  is  comparatively  less 
than  nothing  to  Him.  What  then — as  a  ground  or 
reason  of  certitude  to  him, — what  is  there  in  the  uni- 
verse superior  or  equal  to  the  Word  of  this  all-glorious 
Being  ?  Is  it  cause  for  wonder,  that  whatever  this 
Word  contains  is  as  obviously  true  and  real  to  the  soul 
of  a  believer,  as  the  existence  of  the  world  is  to  his 
natural  consciousness  ? 

Now,  among  the  contents  of  this  Word,  high  and 
transcendent  as  the  sun  in  fhe  system  which   he  il- 


2^2  FAITH. 

lumines,  is  the  scheme  of  Justification  by  grace.  It  is 
of  course  correspondent^  distinguished  among  the 
spiritual  apprehensions  of  a  regenerate  man.  His  in- 
effable complacency  in  it,  his  joyous  acceptance  of  it, 
his  absolute  reliance  upon  it,  for  his  own  personal  justi- 
fication, is,  of  course,  a  fact,  a  moral  necessity.  Thus 
it  comes  to  pass,  that  he  is  actually  justified  by  it ; 
and  because  the  event  occurs  through  an  exercise  of 
faith,  it  is  ascribed  to  Faith  as  its  productive  cause. 
He  is  said  to  be  justified  by  his  faith.  The  connect- 
ing medium  between  him  and  the  scheme  of  justifica- 
tion, is  spoken  of,  by  metonomy,  as  if  it  had  in  itself  a 
justifying  virtue.  It  is  said,  indeed,  to  be  imputed  to 
him,  for  righteousness ;  as  if  it  were  equivalent,  at 
least,  to  a  complete  obedience  of  the  law.  The  ex- 
planation has  been  given.  It  is  not  that  faith  is  this 
in  itself;  it  would  not  be  this,  even  if  it  were  perfect. 
The  only  substitute  for  obedience,  or  the  righteousness 
of  the  law,  is  the  Atonement — "  the  righteousness  of 
God,"  (Rom.  i.  17  ;  iii.  21,  22)  ;  but  whereas  it  is 
through  the  instrumentality  of  faith,  that  this  righteous- 
ness becomes  available  to  justification,  so  the  instru- 
ment is  put  for  its  object,  and  is  imputed  or  accounted 
as  if  it  were  tin's  in  reality. 

The  function  of  faith  is  not  restricted  to  justification. 
From  first  to  last,  it  is,  on  our  part,  the  factor,  the 
working  power  in  our  salvation.  Next  to  the  influence 
of  the  indwelling  Spirit,  it  is  the  prime  agent  in  the 
production  of  character,  the  perfecting  of  inherent 
righteousness  in  the  justified.  In  all  its  acts,  the  first 
included. — that  in  which  it  justifies  us, — it  is  a  van- 


FAITH.  273 

qnislier  of  evil,  a  purifier  of  the  heart,  a  former  of  the 
image  of  Christ  within  us.  The  same  faith  which  ap- 
propriates justifying  grace,  accomplishes  the  whole, 
and  does  this  in  the  self-same  kind  and  mode  of 
activity.  It  sanctifies  precisely  as  it  justifies  us.  In 
itself,  an  exercise  of  spiritual  understanding  or  dis- 
cernment terminating  on  its  proper  objects,  the  con- 
tents of  Scripture,  it  gives  these  objects  a  formative 
influence  on  the  soul,  and  moulds  the  character  and 
life  in  conformity  to  them.  Its  efficacy  is  not  from 
itself,  but  from  the  revelations  of  the  Word  of  God, 
or  more  strictly  from  God  Himself,  as  discerned  by 
means  of  them.  It  is  therefore,  in  a  sense,  a  Divine 
efficacy.  The  Word  of  God  gives  Faith,  a  use  as  it 
were  of  the  Divine  attributes.  It  sees  light  in  God's 
light,  is  wiser  than  the  ancients,  has  an  unction  from 
the  Holy  One  whereby  it  knows  all  things,  looks  into 
the  future,  sees  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies,  the 
second  advent  of  Christ,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
the  judgment  of  the  world,  the  new  heavens  and 
earth,  the  end  of  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  :  The 
whole  is  reality  to  Faith.  Moreover,  it  can  do  all 
things,  remove  mountains,  quench  the  violence  of  fire, 
subdue  kingdom?,  overcome  the  world.  It  can  com- 
mand whatever  it  will  ;  ask  and  receive  what  it  will ; 
fill  itself  with  all  the  fulness  of  God  :  Nothing  is  im- 
possible to  it :  So  it  is  written  in  the  Word  of  God — 
that  Word  which  to  Faith  is  as  God  Himself.  Of 
course,  it  is  to  be  taken  in  a  consistency  with  what- 
ever else  that  Word  contains :  for  its  contents  are  a 
unit,  each  cognate  and  co-organized  with  every  other 
12* 


274  FAITH. 

and  with  the  whole  ;  but  it  is  not  hereby  deprived  of 
its  own  proper  significance,  a  significance  not  dimin- 
ished but  increased  in  value  by  its  organic  relations, 
and  not  to  be  misapprehended  by  Faith. 

Three  conclusions  follow  :  In  the  first  place,  that 
the  first  concern  of  a  believer,  is  to  have  his  faith 
always  in  lively  and  vigorous  exercise.  Only  let  him 
believe.  In  proportion  to  the  measure  of  his  faith  will 
be  the  measure  of  his  attainment  in  personal  virtue  or 
conformity  to  Christ ;  the  measure  of  his  good  works 
or  usefulness  in  the  world  ;  the  measure  of  his  meet- 
ness  for  the  blessedness  of  heaven.  And,  that  he  may 
be  mature  and  strong  in  faith,  it  is  necessary,  in  the 
next  place,  that  he  keep  the  principle  of  faith,  the 
spiritual  sense  of  which  faith  is  an  exercise  in  its  nor- 
mal condition  ;  in  order  to  do  which,  thirdly,  the 
chief  prerequisite  is,  that  he  grieve  not  the  indwelling 
Spirit  of  God,  the  author  and  vitalizer  of  this  principle 
and  of  all  its  activity.  This  last  practically  includes 
the  others  ;  they  will  not,  cannot  be  wanting,  when 
the  Spirit  is  not  grieved  ;  and  therefore  this  precept, 
"  grieve  not,  quench  not  the  Spirit,"  may  be  propounded 
as  the  summary  or  compend  of  all  his  concern. 


XIII.— CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS. 

The  chief  excellence  of  the  good  is  in  themselves, 
not  in  their  works ;  in  their  character,  not  in  their 
manifestations  of  it.  However  high  their  estimation 
in  respect  of  the  latter,  it  is  as  nothing  compared  with 
that  of  their  inherent  excellence.  The  revealed  glory 
of  the  Deity,  which  fills  the  world  with  its  effulgence, 
is  but  a  faint  ray  of  the  immanent  perfection  of  His 
Nature.  But  there  is  a  distinction,  a  higher  and  a 
lower,  in  inherent  excellence  itself.  The  spiritual  is 
superior  to  the  natural,  the  moral  to  the  constitutional. 
The  latter,  indeed,  is  but  in  order  to  the  former,  from 
its  subordinate  relation  to  which  it  takes  its  highest 
value.  It  is  the  chief  glory  of  the  Divine  attributes, 
that  they  are  all,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in  the  service  of 
Love,  the  essence  and  sum  of  moral  rectitude  or  good- 
ness. 

In  the  ground  of  our  justification  by  grace,  there  is 
no  place  for  any  righteousness  or  moral  excellence  of 
ours  ;  and  there  is  no  necessity  for  it.  The  Atone- 
ment is  all  sufficient  for  its  purpose,  without  addition 
from  us.  It  were,  moreover,  offering  the  highest 
affront  to  infinite  excellence  ;  it  were  arrogating  a 
justifying  virtue  to  that  which  needs  to  be  justified  ; 
it  were  bringing  guilt  to  assist  in  justifying  the  guilty  ; 
it  were  seeking  to  combine  pollution  with  a  purity,  in 


276  CHARACTER   OF  BELIEVERS. 

the  presence  of  which  "  the  heavens  arc  not  clean,"  to 
attempt  making  an  addition  to  it :  An  iniquity  too 
common  among  men,  and  not  less  perilous  and  hurtful 
than  common. 

But  it  is  not  to  be  hence  concluded,  that  personal 
righteousness  or  moral  excellence,  on  our  part,  may  be 
dispensed  with  in  our  justification,  or  that  we  may  be 
justified  by  grace,  while  still  unjust  in  ourselves,  or 
disobedient  to  the  law.  Justification  allows  no  inver- 
sion of  the  scale  of  excellence  ;  no  place  for  the  idea 
that  character  is  less  valuable  than  condition,  or  that 
personal  goodness  is  unessential  to  the  favor  of  God. 
Justification,  on  the  contrary,  is  itself  in  order  to  a 
good  character  ;  of  which,  the  germ  is  already  in  us 
when  it  takes  place,  and  the  full  maturity  and  perfec- 
tion already  provided  for  and  secured.  In  the  act  of 
justifying  us,  God  begins  the  fulfilment  of  a  scheme 
of  agency,  each  part  of  which  is  interconnected  with 
the  whole,  and  with  every  other  part.  In  its  time  and 
order,  the  presence  of  no  part  can  be  wanting.  The 
scheme  is  a  unit.  The  first  part  anticipates  the  last 
"Whom  He  justifies,  them  He  sanctifies,  and,  in  due 
time,  He  also  glorifies. 

While,  therefore,  justification  and  personal  virtue 
are  distinct,  they  are  inseparable  from  each  other. 
The  former,  a  single  act,  is  already  complete  ;  the 
latter,  a  gradual  formation,  is  also  sure  of  eventual 
completion.  Simultaneously  with  the  moment  of  justi- 
fication, the  Holy  Spirit  begins  His  appropriate  func- 
tion within  us.  It  is  through  this  beginning  that  we 
meet  the  indispensable  condition  of  our  justification. 


CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS,  277 

Having  already  entered  our  perverted  nature,  the 
Spirit  regenerates  it,  renews  it,  assimilates  it  to  His 
own  ;  and  thus  delivering  it  from  the  dominion  of  sin, 
giving  truth  and  falsehood,  good  and  evil,  their  just 
appearances  again,  making  old  things  to  pass  away 
and  all  things  to  become  new  to  us,  He  evokes  our 
complacency  in  the  glorious  plan  of  justification  by 
grace,  as  set  before  us  in  the  inspired  "Word,  so  that 
we  joyfully  adopt  and  accept  it  as  our  own.  Nor  does 
He  rest  here.  He  has  come  into  us,  as  into  His  tem- 
ple, His  everlasting  habitation,  out  of  which  He  is 
never  more  to  depart.  Henceforth  the  supreme  do- 
minion within  us  is  that  of  rectitude.  Our  reason, 
our  conscience,  our  intelligence,  our  affections,  our  acts 
of  willing,  our  spirit,  our  habits  and  ways  of  life,  are 
inviolably  consecrated  to  personal  virtue.  Such  is  the 
security  for  good  character  in  the  justified.  It  is  as 
sufficient  for  its  purpose,  as  the  Atonement  is  for  our 
justification  before  God. 

For  substance,  personal  righteousness,  or  moral  ex- 
cellence, is  universally  the  same  ;  the  same  in  heaven 
and  on  earth,  in  God  and  the  angels,  in  man  before  his 
fall  and  after  his  restoration.  But  like  intelligence 
and  physical  life,  it  is  modified  by  its  surroundings, 
the  external  agencies  which  exert  themselves  upon  it. 
In  respect  to  justified  man,  these  are  wondrously 
distinctive  and  peculiar.  The  mode  of  his  justification, 
as  an  objective  power,  has  an  influence  upon  him  to 
which  there  is  no  parallel,  and  which  is  necessarily 
foreign  and  strange  to  others.  In  the  reversal  of  his 
doom   to   eternal   death  ;  in  the   obliteration   of  his 


278  CHARACTER   OF  BELIEVERS. 

countless  impurities  and  offences  ;  in  the  immeasurable, 
all-amazing  contrast  between  what  he  was,  and  what 
he  has  become  ;  and  above  all,  in  the  Great  Propitia- 
tion through  which  he  is  justified,  there  are  motives, 
elements  of  purity,  of  which  he  alone  can  be  conscious, 
and  such  as  cannot  but  give  him  a  transcendent 
peculiarity  of  personal  character. 

But  there  is  yet  another  demand  for  peculiarity. 
The  plan  of  justifying  grace  comprehends  our  confor- 
mity to  an  unparalleled  pattern  or  type  of  personal 
virtue  ;  even  of  that  self-same  type,  by  the  exercise  of 
which  the  Atonement  was  made,  the  way  for  our  justi- 
fication by  grace  prepared.  After  the  very  example 
of  that  righteousness  through  the  virtue  of  which  we 
are  justified,  we  ourselves  are  required  to  become 
righteous.  The  character  of  Christ  is  to  be  produced 
in  us.  That  very  stamp  or  distinction  of  righteous- 
ness which  he  displayed  in  His  humiliation  and  death 
on  our  behalf,  we  ourselves  are  to  bear.  The  same 
mind  is  to  be  in  us  which  was  also  in  Him  when,  being 
in  the  Form  of  God  and  equal  with  God,  He  emptied 
Himself,  and  took  upon  Him  the  Form  of  a  servant, 
and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  man  ;  and  being 
found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  humbled  Himself,  and  be- 
came obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  Cross 
(Phil.  ii.  5-8).  In  making  the  Atonement  Christ  was 
alone  ;  no  creature  could  take  part  with  Him  in  that. 
But  in  the  spirit  in  which  He  performed  that  work, 
the  character  so  strange  and  peculiar  which  He  dis- 
played in  performing  it,  we  are  to  be  like  Him,  pre- 
cisely and  perfectly  like  Him — conformed  to  Him  with- 


CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS.  279 

out  exception  or  reserve.  This  conformity  on  our 
part — elemental  at  first,  and  at  last  complete — is  the 
true  exponent  or  significance  of  the  condition  of  our 
being  justified  by  His  atoning  death  ;  and  this  not  by 
an  arbitrary  arrangement,  but  by  the  requisition  of 
essential  rectitude.  We  should  be  without  the  prin- 
ciple of  personal  virtue  if  we  should  be  found  wanting 
in  this  conformity  ;  if  the  same  love  in  kind,  where- 
with He  loved  us  when  He  died  for  our  sins  had  no  place 
in  our  hearts  ;  nay,  if  it  did  not  actually  reproduce  His 
character  in  us.  When  the  Apostle  speaks  of  his 
being  crucified  with  Christ,  of  his  being  made  conform- 
able to  the  death  of  Christ,  of  his  bearing  about  in 
his  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  the  life 
also  of  Jesus  might  be  manifest  in  his  body,  he  does 
but  give  himself  as  a  specimen  of  the  character  which 
is  proper  and  requisite  in  all  who  are  justified  by 
grace.  This  mode  of  justification  demands  such  a 
character,  and  virtue  itself  is  disowned  where  the 
demand  is  not  met. 

On  no  point  is  Biblical  teaching  more  full  and  im- 
pressive than  on  this — the  essential  identity  in  charac- 
ter between  Christ  and  ourselves.  Recur  to  our 
Lord's  frequent  discourses  on  it  to  His  disciples  :  re- 
cur especially  to  the  prayer  which  He  offered  on  their 
behalf  before  His  Passion,  the  great  burden  of  which 
was  this  very  thing  :  call  to  mind  the  declaration  that 
God  has  predestinated  us  to  be  conformed  to  the  image 
of  His  Son  :  study  the  meaning  of  the  Scripture  where 
it  calls  us  the  brethren  of  Christ,  and  Him  the  First- 
born among  many  brethren,  and  makes  us  members 


280  CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS. 

of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His  bones,  and 
identifies  us  with  Him,  in  His  death,  His  burial,  His 
resurrection,  His  ascension,  and  His  glory  in  Heaven : 
Mark  attentively  the  Biblical  representation  of  the 
Spirit's  method  of  working  in  sanctifying  us  :  how  He 
ever  keeps  the  image  of  Christ  before  us  ;  takes  of 
the  things  of  Christ  and  shows  them  to  us  ;  changes 
us  into  His  likeness  more  and  more,  from  glory  to 
glory ;  forms  Him  within  us  the  hope  of  glory,  and 
ceases  not  until  our  resemblance  to  Him  is  perfect  and 
entire,  wanting  nothing.  It  is  not  simply  virtue  or 
righteousness  that  is  needed,  but  that  mode  or  fashion 
of  it  of  which  the  only  example,  in  this  or  any  world, 
is  that  of  the  God-man  our  Saviour. 

Such  then  is  that  peculiarity  of  character  or  inherent 
righteousness,  which  belongs  to  those  who  are  justified 
by  grace.  It  is  individual  and  unique.  It  has  no 
parallel,  no  similitude,  among  men  or  angels.  As  to 
their  subjective  virtue,  angels  are  not  altogether  what 
they  were  before  they  knew  the  depth  to  which  the 
Divine  Goodness  could  descend  in  the  form  of  mercy 
to  man.  The  manifestations  of  this  mercy  cannot  but 
modify  and  immeasurably  enhance  the  virtue  and  con- 
sequently the  happiness  of  the  universe.  But  justified 
man  must  have  forever  an  individuality  of  character 
of  which  no  other  can  partake.  Others  will  be  one 
with  him  in  celebrating  the  praise  of  justifying  mercy 
(Rev.  v.  11,  12)  ;  but  there  is  one  act  of  worship  in 
which  they  cannot  take  part :  they  cannot  sing  with 
the  justified,  "  Unto  Him  that  loved  us  and  washed 
us  from  our  sins  in   His  blood  ;"  and  the  subjective 


CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS.  281 

difference  which  hinders  them  from  uniting  in  this 
song  has,  as  to  its  ground,  a  breadth  and  a  length, 
a  depth  and  height,  which  passes  finite  knowledge. 

Among  men,  all  but  the  justified  are  entire  strang- 
ers to  virtue.  There  is  to  them  no  alternative,  but 
either  to  be  virtuous  with  that  peerless  virtue  which 
is  the  companion  and  fruit  of  justifying  grace,  or  to 
be  destitute  of  the  germ  and  life  of  virtue.  It  is  com- 
mon to  commend  the  pursuit  of  virtue,  without  refer- 
ence to  this  grace  as  prerequisite  to  it — sometimes  as 
preparatory  to  our  receiving  it ;  sometimes  not  only 
as  possible  but  sufficient  without  it ;  sometimes  with 
contempt  for  it  as  antagonistic  to  virtue  :  But  if  an 
effect  cannot  be  without  its  cause,  if  we  cannot  have 
sunbeams  apart  from  the  sun,  neither  can  man  be  virtu- 
ous or  inherently  just,  without  being  already  just  with 
God,  through  justification  by  grace.  The  first  concern 
of  man  is  to  accept  the  Atonement  ;  to  reject  it,  is  to 
love  a  twofold  death — death  under  the  condemnatory 
sentence  of  immutable  law  and  rectitude,  and  death 
as  to  the  hope  of  restoration  to  rectitude  or  virtue. 
It  is  sin  refusing  to  be  forgiven,  guilt  too  proud  to  ac- 
cept of  justifying  grace  ;  it  is  also  the  foul  and  bitter 
waters  of  inborn  corruption,  refusing  to  be  displaced 
by  a  well  of  celestial  water  springing  up  into  the  life 
of  everlasting  purity  and  joy.  After  it  may  remain, 
what  doubtless  were  before  it,  activities  of  conscience 
and  natural  affection,  struggles  to  be  just  with  God  ; 
good  works,  so  called,  but  no  virtue,  and  no  sufficiency 
for  virtue  ;  nay,  it  necessitates  an  invigoration  of  the 
principle  of  sin,  and  a  new  guilt  greater  than  the  first. 


282  CHARACTER  OF  BELIEVERS. 

As  to  appropriate  character  in  the  justified,  it  has 
been  already  said  that  its  formation  is  gradual.  Its 
beginning,  like  that  of  our  natural  existence,  is  ru- 
dimental  or  embryonic  ;  its  development  is  often  re- 
tarded, sometimes  even  regressive ;  it  has  to  endure 
manifold  contentions  from  within  and  from  without ; 
it  is  sometimes  overborne  in  its  conflicts,  and  for  a 
season  seems  to  be  extinct :  but  it  eventually  prevails, 
over  its  adversaries, — through  all  its  changes  pro- 
gresses to  completion,  and  at  length  appears  pure 
amid  the  purities  of  Heaven,  a  perfect  resemblance  to 
the  character  of  Christ. 


XIV.— TRUTH  THE  SAME  AND  ALWAYS  YOUNG: 
THE  OLD  IN  THE  NEW. 

"  I  write  no  new  commandment  unto  you,  but  the 
old  commandment  which  ye  had  from  the  beginning. 
Again,  a  new  commandment  I  write  unto  you."*    It  is 
common  in  popular  discourse,  to  contradict  our  own 
assertions    immediately  after  making   them— to  say 
what  we  go  on  to  deny,  or  deny  what  we  have  just 
said ;  we  are  not,  however,  in  such  cases,  inconsistent 
with  ourselves,  nor  do  we  speak  inadvertently ;  our 
design  is  to  set  the  thing  we  speak  of  into  contrast 
with  itself,  under  different  aspects.      We    speak  of 
the  thing  in  the  second  instance,  in  a  different  rela- 
tion, or  with  a  different  reference  from  that  which  we 
intended  in  the  first.     The  apostle  does  not  contra- 
dict himself,  when,  after  saying,  "  I  write  no  new  com- 
mandment," he  adds,  in  the  following  sentence,  "Again, 
a  new  commandment  I  write."     What  he  wrote  was, 
for  substance,  "  the  word  which  the  church  had  had 
from  the  beginning.''     It  was,  therefore,  nothing  new. 
But  yet  it  was  new  in  a  sense,  on  account  of  the  new 
light  which  was  shining  in  respect  to  it ;  the  new  as- 
sociations  and   enforcements   it   had  received  — the 
fullness  of  meaning  which  it  had  been  shown  to  con- 
tain. 

*  1  John  ii.  7,  8. 

(283) 


2S4  THE  OLD  IN  THE  NEW. 

There  has  been  but  one  true  religion.  There  are 
two  Testaments  ;  but  the  religion  they  contain  is  one. 
Christianity,  the  new  commandment  of  the  apostle,  is 
but  the  faith  of  the  antediluvian  elders  in  its  maturity 
and  completeness.  The  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
in  their  historical,  doctrinal,  and  ethical  details,  and 
in  their  diversified  style,  diction,  examples,  illustra- 
tions, are  but  the  perfect  edition  of  a  religion,  the 
rudiments  of  which  were  given  to  man  by  his  Maker 
near  the  beginning  of  his  existence  ;  regarding  it  in 
its  date,  it  was  old  ;  regarding  it  in  the  stage  of  devel- 
opment which  it  had  reached,  it  was  strangely  new  : 
eye  had  not  seen,  ear  had  not  heard  it ;  the  thought 
of  it  had  not  entered  into  the  heart  of  man. 

The  apostle  might  speak  of  it  as  new,  comparing  it 
with  itself  under  the  latest  of  its  antecedent  forms ; 
those  not  only  of  the  last  of  the  prophets,  and  of  the 
harbinger  of  our  Lord,  but  of  our  Lord  Himself,  pre- 
vious to  His  ascension.  Even  during  his  personal 
ministry,  there  was  scarcely  the  twilight  of  evangeli- 
cal truth,  when  compared  with  the  full-day  brightness 
with  which  it  shone  after  the  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  of  fire. 

Nor  have  the  epithets  old  and  new  ceased  to  be  ap- 
plicable to  Christianity.  There  has  been  progress  in 
the  knowledge  of  Christianity — progress  from  vague- 
ness to  precision,  from  obscurity  to  splendor,  in  some 
points — since  the  days  of  the  apostles.  There  have 
been  no  authentic  additions  to  it ;  but  new  represen- 
tations and  impressions  have  been  given  of  it,  from 
time  to  time,  in  virtue  of  which  it  has  been  itself  called 


THE  OLD  IN  THE  NEW.  285 

new.     At  different  epochs,  it  has  become  almost  as 
new  as  it  was  at  first,  in  its  new  manifestations  of 
power,  and  in  the  new  impressions  which  men  have 
had  of  it.     It  was  so  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  when  its  republication  by  the  reformers,  was 
as  a  resurrection  of  it  to  the  nations  of  Europe.     In- 
deed, at  every  period  of  awakening  in  the  church,  the 
ancient  faith  becomes  new  again.     Nay,  it  is,  as  it 
•were,  constantly  rcjuvenizing  itself  in  the  experience 
of  individual  Christians,  to  many  of  whom  it  seems  to 
be  always  becoming  more  and  more  novel.     The  old, 
primitive  word,  the  same  essentially,  yesterday,  to-day 
and  forever,  appears  to  them  each  day  more  fresh  than 
when  it  first  opened  itself  to  them.     It  is  always  re- 
cognized by  them  as  the  same  old  commandment,  but 
it  has  a  new  aspect ;  everything  in  it  looks  perfectly 
fresh  and  young  ;  its  facts,  teachings,  tendencies,  bear- 
ings, relations,  influences,  are  ever  and  more  and  more 

new. 

This  power  of  self-rejuvenescence,  this  old-new,  or 
new-old  life  of  our  religion,  is  what  makes  it  a  religion 
for  all  time— for  universal  man,  till  the  end  of  the 
world.  It  would  not  otherwise  have  a  permanently 
saving  power.  It  does  not  possess  this  power,  as  be- 
ing simply  historic,  that  is  to  say,  not  a  myth  or 
fabulous,  but  founded  in  fact ;  this  is  necessary,  but 
not  sufficient :  to  meet  the  wants  of  man  in  successive 
generations,  Christianity  must  be  unlike  other  relig- 
ions in  two  respects— not  only  in  having  a  ground,  as 
they  have  not,  in  veritable  history,  but  also  in  having 
power  to  renovate  and  reproduce  its  ground,  so  as  to 


286  THE  OLD  IN  THE  NEW. 

make  it  no  less  real  and  manifest  to  others  of  tlic  re- 
motest times,  than  it  was  to  those  who  lived  in  the 
beginning.  The  past  must  return  in  the  present ; 
antiquity  must  reappear  in  novelty  :  a  merely  historic 
religion  is  not  an  available  one — does  not,  cannot 
answer  the  purpose  of  religion.  Dying  man  needs  a 
Saviour,  and  one  inhabiting  the  present  equally  with 
the  past,  and  one,  moreover,  present  to  him,  and  with 
him,  as  he  walks  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  more  really,  more  perfectly,  than  any  fellow- 
mortal  can  be  at  any  time.  The  ability  of  the  Chris- 
tian history,  of  the  ground-fact  of  Christianity,  to  re- 
produce itself  in  the  present,  to  be  always  fresh,  young, 
palpable,  as  at  first,  in  the  experience  of  believers,  is, 
in  truth,  its  saving  ability.  Christianity,  divine  in  its 
essence — a  divine  life,  as  well  as  a  divine  doctrine — 
having  its  spring  in  God — and  being  vitalized  and 
sustained  by  the  indwelling  Spirit  of  God — being, 
moreover,  not  only  historic,  but  the  key  of  history — 
its  Author  being  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  world, 
who  orders  the  events  of  time  with  reference  to  its 
advancement,  and  to  the  same  end  exerts,  when  He 
pleases,  supernatural  forces:  Hence  its  permanent 
efficiency  as  a  religion  for  man  ;  its  antiquity  and  also 
its  perpetual  and  progressive  novelty,  its  venerable 
age,  and  also  its  eternal  youth  and  freshness. 

This  two-fold  characteristic  of  Christianity  has 
given  rise  to  a  principle  of  classification  and  division 
in  the  church.  The  epithets  oZc/and  new,  from  this,  as 
the  occasion,  have  been  applied  to  different  classes  of 
Christians.     Among  Christians,  as  among  men,  some 


THE  OLD   IN   THE  NEW.  287 

are  constitutionally  conservative,  sonic  versatile  and 
impulsive:  hence  antagonisms,  "sides,"  "schools," 
"  liohts  " — one  called  old  from  their  attachment  to  the 
oldness,  the  antiquity  of  Christianity  ;  the  other  new, 
from  their  characteristic  susceptibility  to  the  power  of 
the  novelty  in  which  Christianity  arrays  itself  from 
time  to  time. 

This  susceptibility  implies  no  comparison  of  old  and 
new  in  Christianity  itself,  no  ground  or  possibility  of 
a  difference  between  Christianity  at  first  and  after- 
wards, but  only  a  special  liveliness  or  impressibility  to 
new  manifestations  of  what  is,  in  itself,  old.  It  im- 
plies no  want  of  interest  or  delight  in  the  old  faith — 
it  is,  in  truth,  this  delight,  this  interest  itself.  The 
novelty,  whose  power  is  felt,  is  not  absolute  novelty  ; 
it  is  antiquity  in  novelty  ;  the  new  does  but  reproduce 
the  old  ;  it  is  the  same  old  Christianity  which  the 
apostles  preached,  giving  new  proofs  of  its  identity, 
and  of  its  invincible,  undying,  ever-efficient  power  to 
save.  It  is  not  a  reproach,  it  is  not  weakness,  to  be 
perfectly  alive  to  novelty,  under  this  idea  of  it. 
It  is  honorable  to  be  called  new  for  such  a  reason,  and 
more  so  than  old,  if  the  latter  term  is  to  be  understood 
in  a  sense  implying  that  the  other  is  not  honorable. 

This  nominal  distinctiveness  has  no  necessary  con- 
nection with  sectarianism  :  that  is  the  bane  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  this,  apart  from  the  spirit  of  sect,  is  but 
diversity  in  unity,  which  in  the  scheme  of  the  world 
and  in  Deity  itself,  is  the  condition  of  perfection.  In 
veste  Chrisli  varktas  sit,  non  scissura  sit. 


Erratum. —  Page   23,   line   23,    insert  after   "miraculous. 
"  or  having  the  miraculous." 


if 


.**: 


